January 2023 Summaries

A walkthrough demonstrates how to build a React and Flask B2B application using PropelAuth for hosted authentication, user management, and organization support. It covers creating and branding a PropelAuth project, configuring optional features such as social login and organization invitations, and setting up a test user before integrating the React SDK with an AuthProvider, React Router, login, signup, logout, and protected user-information pages. The frontend retrieves access tokens automatically and sends them in Bearer authorization headers for protected backend requests, with a development proxy used to address cross-origin requests between React and Flask. On the Flask side, the propelauth-flask library initializes token validation and protects routes with decorators that identify authenticated users or verify organization membership without external validation requests for each JWT. The application is extended to list a user’s organizations, allow users without organizations to create one, and retrieve organization details only for valid members, illustrating how PropelAuth can replace custom authentication interfaces, invitation flows, and account-management infrastructure.

A walkthrough demonstrates how to build a React and Express B2B application using PropelAuth for hosted authentication, user management, and organization features. It covers creating and branding a PropelAuth project, configuring optional social login and B2B settings, registering a test user, and integrating the React SDK through an AuthProvider, routing, login, signup, logout, and protected user-information views. The frontend retrieves authentication state, user data, and access tokens, then sends authenticated requests with Bearer tokens to an Express backend, with a proxy configuration used to address local CORS concerns. On the server, PropelAuth’s Express middleware validates JWT access tokens, exposes authenticated user information through protected routes, and can reject unauthenticated requests with a 401 response. The guide also adds organization support by listing a user’s organizations, enabling organization creation or invitations, displaying organization details, and using membership middleware to ensure users can access only organizations to which they belong.

A tutorial demonstrates how to build a React-based B2B application with PropelAuth for hosted authentication and account management, alongside a Python backend deployed through AWS Chalice. It covers configuring a PropelAuth project and branded login pages, creating test users, integrating the React AuthProvider and routing, handling login, signup, logout, protected pages, and displaying authenticated user information. The frontend sends bearer access tokens to protected backend endpoints, with a development proxy used to address local CORS concerns. On the backend, the PropelAuth Python library validates JWT access tokens and returns appropriate authorization responses, while Chalice packages and deploys the service as AWS Lambda functions. The application is extended with organization capabilities, allowing users to list their organizations, create one or accept invitations when none exist, and retrieve organization details only when membership authorization is confirmed.

Startups often begin with a minimum viable product that prioritizes rapid delivery, but B2B applications eventually require authentication capabilities beyond basic signup and login, including organizations, invitations, roles, permissions, account management, and enterprise single sign-on. PropelAuth positions its platform as a way to begin with individual B2C users and later enable B2B organization features without rebuilding authentication. This transition involves changing application requests from user-scoped resources to organization-scoped resources, while using frontend organization-selection tools and backend middleware to verify membership, roles, and permissions. The platform also supports role-based access control, recommending initial Member and Admin roles while allowing later changes that automatically remap users and pending invitations. Built-in self-service organization interfaces let customers invite coworkers, manage invitations, and assign roles, while enterprise customers can configure SSO/SAML connections through the same management tools, with feature access controlled by the product’s pricing tiers.

Magic links are passwordless, one-time authentication links that can reduce login friction and improve security by eliminating the need for users to remember passwords. Beyond standard sign-in, they can automatically authenticate recipients of shared content and redirect them to the relevant page, help users move from desktop setup workflows to mobile devices through emailed links or QR codes, and simplify converting waitlist members into active users with immediate product access. They can also support low-code payment-to-access funnels by granting customers access after Stripe payments, potentially automated through services such as Zapier or Pipedream. Although some users may still prefer passwords and password managers, magic links can improve password-reset experiences by offering direct login as an alternative to creating a new password. PropelAuth is presented as a service that supports magic links alongside other authentication methods, hosted authentication interfaces, custom redirects, and email delivery.

A Next.js B2B application walkthrough demonstrates how PropelAuth can provide hosted authentication, user management, and organization features without requiring developers to build login interfaces, emails, or invitation flows themselves. It begins by configuring a PropelAuth project and branded hosted pages, creating a test user, then installing the React and Node SDKs in a Next.js project. The frontend uses an application-level AuthProvider along with authentication wrappers and hooks to show login status, redirect users to sign-up or login pages, log them out, and display protected user information. The guide then shows how to send access tokens in authorization headers to Next.js API routes, validate those tokens server-side, and return authenticated user data. Finally, it adds B2B organization functionality, enabling users to view their organizations, create or join organizations, access organization-specific pages, verify membership before returning data, view fellow members, and launch invitation flows.

PropelAuth has released a JavaScript/TypeScript library, @propelauth/cloudflare-worker, to simplify authentication and authorization in Cloudflare Workers. The library validates authorization headers locally without external verification requests, aiming to provide low-latency user authentication through Cloudflare’s global network while automatically rejecting unauthorized API requests. It also includes interfaces for multi-tenant organization management and user roles and permissions, targeting B2B applications. PropelAuth complements the library with prebuilt user-facing functionality for organization creation, coworker invitations, and enterprise SSO setup, with the goal of helping developers build secure serverless applications more quickly.