PropelAuth Express Library

An Express library for managing authentication, backed by PropelAuth.

PropelAuth makes it easy to add authentication and authorization to your B2B/multi-tenant application.

Your frontend gets a beautiful, safe, and customizable login screen. Your backend gets easy authorization with just a few lines of code. You get an easy-to-use dashboard to config and manage everything.

Documentation

• Full reference this library is here
• Getting started guides for PropelAuth are here

Installation

npm install @propelauth/express

Initialize

initAuth performs a one-time initialization of the library. It will verify your apiKey is correct and fetch the metadata needed to verify access tokens in requireUser and optionalUser.

import { initAuth } from '@propelauth/express';

const {
    requireUser,
    fetchUserMetadataByUserId,
    // ...
} = initAuth({
    authUrl: "REPLACE_ME",
    apiKey: "REPLACE_ME",
});

Protect API Routes

The @propelauth/express library provides an Express middleware requireUser. This middleware will verify the access token and set req.userClass to the User Class if it's valid.

import { initAuth } from '@propelauth/express';

const { requireUser } = initAuth({ /* ... */ });

app.get("/api/whoami", requireUser, (req, res) => {
    res.text("Hello user with ID " + req.userClass.userId);
});

Otherwise, the request is rejected with a 401 Unauthorized. You can also use optionalUser if you want the request to proceed in either case.

import { initAuth } from '@propelauth/express';

const { optionalUser } = initAuth({ /* ... */ });

app.get("/api/whoami", optionalUser, (req, res) => {
    if (req.user) {
        res.text("Hello user with ID " + req.userClass.userId);
    } else {
        res.text("Hello unauthenticated user");
    }
});

Authorization / Organizations

You can also verify which organizations the user is in, and which roles and permissions they have in each organization all through the User or OrgMemberInfo Classes.

Check Org Membership

Verify that the request was made by a valid user and that the user is a member of the specified organization.

app.get('/api/org/:orgId', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    const org = req.userClass.getOrg(req.params.orgId)
    if (!org) {
        // return 403 error
    } else {
        res.json(`You are in org ${org.orgName}`)
    }
})

Check Org Membership and Role

Similar to checking org membership, but will also verify that the user has a specific Role in the organization.

A user has a Role within an organization. By default, the available roles are Owner, Admin, or Member, but these can be configured. These roles are also hierarchical, so Owner > Admin > Member.

app.get('/api/org/:orgId', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    const org = req.userClass.getOrg(req.params.orgId)
    if (!org || !org.isRole('Owner')) {
        // return 403 error
    } else {
        res.json(`You are an Owner in org ${org.orgName}`)
    }
})

Check Org Membership and Permission

Similar to checking org membership, but will also verify that the user has the specified permission in the organization.

Permissions are arbitrary strings associated with a role. For example, can_view_billing, ProductA::CanCreate, and ReadOnly are all valid permissions. You can create these permissions in the PropelAuth dashboard.

app.get('/api/org/:orgId', requireUser, async (req, res) => {
    const org = req.userClass.getOrg(req.params.orgId)
    if (!org || !org.hasPermission('can_view_billing')) {
        // return 403 error
    } else {
        res.json(`You can view billing information for org ${org.orgName}`)
    }
})

Calling Backend APIs

You can also use the library to call the PropelAuth APIs directly, allowing you to fetch users, create orgs, and a lot more.

const auth = initAuth({
    authUrl: 'REPLACE_ME',
    apiKey: 'REPLACE_ME',
})

const magicLink = await auth.createMagicLink({
    email: 'user@customer.com',
})

See the API Reference for more information.

Questions?

Feel free to reach out at support@propelauth.com