Kival separates who participates in a workspace from who can access a particular object. When bringing other people in, establish workspace participation first, then share the knowledge they should work with.
For the underlying authorization rules, see Access model.
Add people to a workspace
Kival users exist independently from workspace membership. A workspace administrator can add an active user as a member or administrator.
Membership makes the workspace available to the user but does not expose every object inside it. Workspace administrators have broader authority and can manage participation and objects within that workspace.
Share objects with the right role
Objects can grant access directly to workspace members as:
Viewer: read and participate in commentary;
Editor: viewer capabilities plus editing canonical content;
Admin: editor capabilities plus sharing and object administration.
Give the lowest role that matches the work. Someone reviewing a decision usually needs viewer; someone maintaining the content needs editor; admin is for people who also need to manage access or lifecycle.
Use groups for reusable team access
Groups let the same set of people receive access across multiple objects. A group is linked into a workspace, then object grants can target that group instead of repeating direct grants for each person.
Use groups when access should follow a recognizable team such as platform or research. Use direct grants for one-off sharing or exceptions.
A group is not itself a workspace, and group membership does not bypass workspace participation.
Keep administration transferable
Objects need a viable administrative path. When ownership of an area changes, grant the new administrator before removing the old one rather than attempting to leave the object without manageable access.
The same principle applies at workspace level: hand off authority explicitly instead of relying on a single long-lived champion account.
Expect revocation to matter immediately
Removing workspace participation, group membership, or an object grant changes what future requests can access. Old inbox entries and other navigation surfaces do not preserve access after the underlying authorization is gone.
That makes offboarding and team changes manageable without rewriting the object's history or authorship.
Use commentary for collaboration, not access control
Once people can see the same object, use its discussion threads to ask questions, review changes, and capture disagreement in context. If the discussion changes the durable understanding, update the object itself.
Sharing determines who can participate; commentary gives those participants a place to work through the knowledge together.