How to set up Apollo client only after user authenticates?

4
votes

I'm a bit confused on how to structure my React/GraphQL (Apollo) app when no connection should be made until the user authenticates/logs in.

Currently I have this:

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <ApolloProvider client={client}>
        <Provider store={store}>
          <Router>
            <div>
              <ul>
                <li><Link to="/">Home</Link></li>
                <li><Link to="/login">Log In</Link></li>
                <li><Link to="/signup">Sign Up</Link></li>
              </ul>
              <AuthenticatedRoute exact path="/" component={HomePage} />
              <Route path="/login" component={LoginPage} />
              <Route path="/signup" component={SignupPage} />
            </div>
          </Router>
        </Provider>
      </ApolloProvider>
    );
  }
}

Here's the creation of the network interface:

const networkInterface = createNetworkInterface({
  uri: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development'
    ? 'http://localhost:3000/graphql'
    : 'TBD',
});

networkInterface.use([
  {
    applyMiddleware(req, next) {
      if (!req.options.headers) {
        req.options.headers = {}; // Create the header object if needed.
      }

      getUserSession()
        .then(session => {
          // get the authentication token from local storage if it exists
          // ID token!
          req.options.headers.authorization = session
            .getIdToken()
            .getJwtToken();
        })
        .catch(err => {
          console.error('oh, this is bad');
        })
        .then(next);
    },
  },
]);

How do I organize this so that the Apollo client is only initialized and set up once, and only after the user has authenticated?

I'm wondering if I could use withApollo to somehow access the client directly and complete the GraphQL auth & connection that way.

Idea 2

Use Redux to track user state, wrap App with connect. When the user authenticates, this triggers a Redux state change which triggers App's componentDidUpdate which could create the network interface for Apollo, causing a re-render in App which would pass an authorized client into <ApolloProvider client={client}>.

3
reactjsgraphqlapolloreact-apolloapollo-client

3 Answers

2
votes

I typically listen for a "isLoggedIn" field to be set to true from redux. When it's set to true, I render the full app and add the authentication header so that the function adds the JWT token to all future requests.

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { ApolloProvider } from 'react-apollo';
import makeStore from '../../store';
import createClient from '../../ApolloClient';

class Sample extends Component {
    login() {
       // login logic here;
    }
    routeTo() {
        // use props or state;
        let isLoggedIn = this.props.isLoggedIn || this.state.loggedIn;
        if(isLoggedIn) {
            const client = createClient(myToken);
            const store = makeStore(myToken);
                return (
                <ApolloProvider store={store} client={client} > 
                    <Routes screenProps={this.state}  />
                </ApolloProvider>);
        } else {
            return <LoginUI onPress={()=>this.login()}/>;
        }
    }
    render() {
        return(
         <div>
            {this.routeTo()}
          </div>
        );
}
2
votes

I use ApolloClient example http://dev.apollodata.com/react/auth.html#Header

networkInterface.use([{
  applyMiddleware(req, next) {
    if (!req.options.headers) {
      req.options.headers = {};  // Create the header object if needed.
    }
    // get the authentication token from local storage if it exists

    const token = localStorage.getItem('token');
    req.options.headers.authorization = token ? `Bearer ${token}` : null;
    next();
  }
}])

the block applyMiddleware will always run before fetching to GraphQL server, so you just need to set localStorage when login and delete when logout.

0
votes
  const token = request.authToken; // localhost.get('authetoken)
  return {
    headers: {
      ...headers,
      Authorization: `Bearer ${token}`,
    },
  };
});```

setContext will take care of that for you