Access CanCan’s `can?` method from a model

There’s a wiki entry at github for this: https://github.com/ryanb/cancan/wiki/ability-for-other-users

You need to change your User model like this:

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  def ability
    @ability ||= Ability.new(self)
  end
  delegate :can?, :cannot?, :to => :ability
end

Then you can check abilities like this:

user.can?(:update,@article)