An action is performed on an object in a cloud computing environment having a plurality of computing nodes. A policy path is determined from at least one permission within a policy of a customer. A first delegation path is determined from within the determined policy path. The first delegation path is directed to at least one object permission for the object upon which the action is to be performed. An authorized user is assigned from a second delegation path from within the determined policy path. The second delegation path is directed to at least one user permission for the action to be performed.