"infinite recursion detected in policy" in Supabase? Your admin check is asking itself

The short answer

"infinite recursion detected in policy for relation" (code 42P17) means a Row Level Security policy reads a table whose policy leads back to itself. The classic case is an admin check on a profiles…

What it means: a policy's sub-query needs the same policy again, so Postgres stops before reading a single row

Usual cause: an admin check on profiles that reads profiles, or two tables whose policies read each other

Safe fix: move the lookup into a security definer function in a private schema, then call it from the policy

Never: turn RLS off, use the secret key in the app, or trust a role users can edit themselves

A rule for your AI tool's project instructions

When a Row Level Security policy needs to check a user's role or membership, never query the same table from inside its own policy, and never let two tables' policies read each other. Put the lookup…