Payload

Authentication Config

Payload's Authentication is extremely powerful and gives you everything you need when you go to build a new app or site in a secure and responsible manner.

To enable Authentication on a collection, define an auth property and set it to either true or to an object containing the options below.

Options

OptionDescription
useAPIKeyPayload Authentication provides for API keys to be set on each user within an Authentication-enabled Collection. More
tokenExpirationHow long (in seconds) to keep the user logged in. JWTs and HTTP-only cookies will both expire at the same time.
maxLoginAttemptsOnly allow a user to attempt logging in X amount of times. Automatically locks out a user from authenticating if this limit is passed. Set to 0 to disable.
lockTimeSet the time that a user should be locked out if they fail authentication more times than maxLoginAttempts allows for.
depthHow many levels deep a user document should be populated when creating the JWT and binding the user to the express req. Defaults to 0 and should only be modified if absolutely necessary, as this will affect performance.
cookiesSet cookie options, including secure, sameSite, and domain. For advanced users.
forgotPasswordCustomize the way that the forgotPassword operation functions. More
verifySet to true or pass an object with verification options to require users to verify by email before they are allowed to log into your app. More

API keys

To integrate with third-party APIs or services, you might need the ability to generate API keys that can be used to identify as a certain user within Payload.

For example, if you have a third-party service or external app that needs to be able to perform protected actions at its discretion, you have two options:

  1. Create a user for the third-party app, and log in each time to receive a token before you attempt to access any protected actions
  2. Enable API key support for the Collection, where you can generate a non-expiring API key per user in the collection

Technically, both of these options will work for third-party integrations but the second option with API key is simpler, because it reduces the amount of work that your integrations need to do to be authenticated properly.

To enable API keys on a collection, set the useAPIKey auth option to true. From there, a new interface will appear in the Admin panel for each document within the collection that allows you to generate an API key for each user in the Collection.

Authenticating via API Key

To utilize your API key while interacting with the REST or GraphQL API, add the Authorization header.

For example, using Fetch:

const response = await fetch('http://localhost:3000/api/pages', {
  headers: {
    Authorization: `${collection.labels.singular} API-Key ${YOUR_API_KEY}`,
  },
});

Forgot Password

You can customize how the Forgot Password workflow operates with the following options on the auth.forgotPassword property:

generateEmailHTML

Function that accepts one argument, containing { req, token, user }, that allows for overriding the HTML within emails that are sent to users attempting to reset their password. The function should return a string that supports HTML, which can be a full HTML email.

Example:

{
  slug: 'customers',
  auth: {
    forgotPassword: {
      generateEmailHTML: ({ req, token, user }) => {
        // Use the token provided to allow your user to reset their password
        const resetPasswordURL = `https://yourfrontend.com/reset-password?token=${token}`;
        return `
          <!doctype html>
          <html>
            <body>
              <h1>Here is my custom email template!</h1>
              <p>Hello, ${user.email}!</p>
              <p>Click below to reset your password.</p>
              <p>
                <a href="${resetPasswordURL}">${resetPasswordURL}</a>
              </p>
            </body>
          </html>
        `;
      }
    }
  }
}

generateEmailSubject

Similarly to the above generateEmailHTML, you can also customize the subject of the email. The function argument are the same but you can only return a string - not HTML.

Example:

{
  slug: 'customers',
  auth: {
    forgotPassword: {
      generateEmailSubject: ({ req, user }) => {
        return `Hey ${user.email}, reset your password!`;
      }
    }
  }
}

Email Verification

If you'd like to require email verification before a user can successfully log in, you can enable it by passing true or an options object to auth.verify. The following options are available:

generateEmailHTML

Function that accepts one argument, containing { req, token, user }, that allows for overriding the HTML within emails that are sent to users indicating how to validate their account. The function should return a string that supports HTML, which can optionally be a full HTML email.

Example:

{
  slug: 'customers',
  auth: {
    verify: {
      generateEmailHTML: ({ req, token, user }) => {
        // Use the token provided to allow your user to verify their account
        const url = `https://yourfrontend.com/verify?token=${token}`;
        return `Hey ${user.email}, verify your email by clicking here: ${url}`;
      }
    }
  }
}

generateEmailSubject

Similarly to the above generateEmailHTML, you can also customize the subject of the email. The function argument are the same but you can only return a string - not HTML.

Example:

{
  slug: 'customers',
  auth: {
    forgotPassword: {
      generateEmailSubject: ({ req, user }) => {
        return `Hey ${user.email}, reset your password!`;
      }
    }
  }
}
Next

Authentication Operations

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