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An account owns resources and account IAM identities. Roles, service accounts, account policies, and STS sessions belong to one account even though IAM has a global endpoint. Selecting another region leaves that ownership unchanged.

Creating an account

Workspace creates accounts at POST /v1/accounts. The response includes the new account and its bootstrap_role_id and bootstrap_role_crn. Creation also creates an AccountAdministrator role in the account. It has the system account Administrator policy and trusts only the creator’s immutable identity. A human creator receives a role assignment automatically. A machine creator still needs iam:AssumeRole in its source account policy before it can assume the bootstrap role. The bootstrap role is an ordinary custom role: review its trust, replace its broad permissions with suitable roles, and delete it when it is no longer needed. It does not give the account authority over the organization.

Assigning people to account roles

In the console, open Organization → Accounts, select the account, then open Settings. The Account access card lets you Assign role to a user or group. A group assignment applies to its user members. An assignment and the role’s trust policy are separate requirements:
  1. The assignment authorizes the human to request iam:AssumeRole for that role.
  2. The role’s trust policy must accept that user’s Workspace principal CRN.
  3. After assumption, account requests use the role’s permissions.
Assigning a role never silently changes its trust policy. Open the role’s Trust Policy editor to allow the intended users. A group is not an assuming principal: use the users’ principal CRNs, or an organization-scoped user pattern together with controlled role assignments.
Broad trust does not replace an assignment. An assignment does not replace trust. Both must permit the exchange.
The Workspace API exposes these operations: An assignment contains principal_type (user or group), principal_id, and role_id, all resolved within the organization and target account. Service accounts use identity policies and trust, not human role assignments.

Selecting an account role

The console’s Account role menu chooses among your assigned roles. Organization owners can use Organization owner for direct bootstrap access or select an explicit role. Other users must select a role to use account services. The console keeps your personal organization session separate from the selected account role session. Organization pages use your personal session; account pages use the selected role. Changing account or organization clears the previous role context. Expired role sessions are renewed from your personal session, subject to current assignments and trust. For integrations, use GET /v1/account-roles to discover a human’s assignments, then send the chosen role CRN to IAM’s POST /v1/assume-role. Verify the returned account_id, account_handle, and role_id before using the token. Changing X-Account-Id does not change a token’s account authority.

Removing access and deleting accounts

Removing an assignment prevents new assumptions through that assignment. Review and revoke existing sessions when ending active access; do not treat assignment removal as a substitute for session revocation. An account must be empty before deletion. Its roles, policies, service accounts, and sessions count as account resources, along with infrastructure. Clean up dependencies before deleting the account through Workspace. For automated account cleanup, keep the original organization credential. Remove resources using the account administrator role, delete that role last, then delete the empty account with the organization credential. Deleting a role also removes its sessions, so its current session cannot continue afterward.