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Core Architecture

When to Use

Read this when you need to understand Group 3.x's data model and how it differs from earlier versions before writing any code.

Decision

Situation Choose Why
New site, Drupal 10.3+/11 Group 3.x Active maintenance, PHP 8 attributes
Existing site on Drupal 9/10 with Group 2.x Stay on 2.x No in-place upgrade to 3.x exists
Migrating from Group 1.x Upgrade to 2.x first 1.x→2.x has an upgrade path; 2.x→3.x does not

Pattern

group_type (config entity, bundle of group)
    |
    +-- group (content entity, bundle = group_type id)
    |
    +-- group_relationship_type (config entity, bundle of group_relationship)
            |
            +-- group_relationship (content entity)
                    |-- gid          -> points to group
                    |-- entity_id    -> points to the related entity
                    |-- plugin_id    -> which GroupRelationType plugin handles this
                    |-- group_type   -> denormalized group type id (performance)

Three scopes of users relative to a group:

Scope Description Constant
Outsider Authenticated site user, NOT a member PermissionScopeInterface::OUTSIDER_ID
Insider Authenticated site user, IS a member PermissionScopeInterface::INSIDER_ID
Individual A specific member with an explicitly assigned role PermissionScopeInterface::INDIVIDUAL_ID
Anonymous Unauthenticated user (subset of outsider scope) —

Common Mistakes

  • Wrong: Treating Group 3.x like Group 1.x → Right: GroupContent, addContent(), and GroupContentEnabler are gone. Everything is now GroupRelationship, addRelationship(), and GroupRelationBase.
  • Wrong: Installing v3 over v2 data → Right: There is no in-place upgrade. Migrate data or use the group2to3 contrib module.

See Also