Authentication – Set up access token permissions with Express

Follow the following steps to start configure your authentication endpoint where

Quickstart

1. Install the liveblocks/node package

   $npm install @liveblocks/node

2. Set up authentication endpoint

   Users need permission to interact with rooms, and you can permit access in an api/liveblocks-auth endpoint by creating the liveblocks-auth.ts file with the following code. In here you can implement your security and define the rooms that your user can enter.

   With access tokens, you should always use a naming pattern for your room IDs, as this enables you to easily allow access to a range of rooms at once. In the code snippet below, we’re using a naming pattern and wildcard * to give the user access to every room in their organization, and every room in their group.

   liveblocks-auth.ts

   const express = require("express");import { Liveblocks } from "@liveblocks/node";
   const liveblocks = new Liveblocks({  secret: "sk_prod_xxxx…xxxxxxsk_prod_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",});
   const app = express();app.use(express.json());
   app.post("/api/liveblocks-auth", (req, res) => {  // Get the current user from your database  const user = __getUserFromDB__(req);
     // Start an auth session inside your endpoint  const session = liveblocks.prepareSession(    user.id,    { userInfo: user.metadata },  // Optional  );
     // Use a naming pattern to allow access to rooms with wildcards  // Giving the user read access on their org, and write access on their group  session.allow(`${user.organization}:*`, session.READ_ACCESS);  session.allow(`${user.organization}:${user.group}:*`, session.FULL_ACCESS);
     // Authorize the user and return the result  const { status, body } = await session.authorize();  return res.status(status).end(body);});

   Read access token permission to learn more about naming rooms and granting permissions with wildcards. Note that if a naming pattern doesn’t work for every room in your application, you can grant access to individual rooms too.

3. Set up the client

   On the front end, you can now replace the publicApiKey option with authEndpoint pointing to the endpoint you just created.

   liveblocks.config.ts

   import { createClient } from "@liveblocks/client";
   const client = createClient({  authEndpoint: "/api/liveblocks-auth",});

   If you need to pass custom headers or data to your endpoint, you can use authEndpoint as a callback instead.

   liveblocks.config.ts

More information

Both userId and userInfo can then be used in your JavaScript application as such:

const self = room.getSelf(); // or useSelf() in Reactconsole.log(self.id);console.log(self.info);