Most networks end up with access policy scattered across boxes: a bit of TACACS+ here, a RADIUS server there, 802.1X configured per switch, and an identity story that never quite lines up. Each piece drifts on its own.

Taranac starts from the opposite idea: one policy core. Every request — whether it’s an engineer logging into a switch over TACACS+, a RADIUS login, or a laptop appearing on a port over 802.1X — is evaluated against the same ordered set of rules, matched on who, where, when and source.

That single source of truth is what makes the rest tractable: consistent decisions across protocols, a built-in tester to prove a rule before you ship it, and an audit trail that reads the same no matter how the request arrived.

This blog is where we’ll write about how that core is built — the wins, the trade-offs, and the occasional yak we had to shave.