authara-go

README

Authara Go SDK

A minimal Go SDK for integrating backend and SSR applications with an Authara authentication server.

This SDK is intentionally small and infrastructure-focused. Its primary responsibility is to verify Authara-issued access tokens and expose authentication facts to your application in a safe, explicit way.

It does not perform authentication itself and does not own session or security policy.

---

Scope and design philosophy

This SDK is designed to:

• expose facts, not policy
• avoid hidden behavior
• keep authentication and authorization concerns separate
• require explicit configuration for any network behavior

Authara itself remains the single source of truth for authentication, sessions, refresh logic, CSRF enforcement, and security invariants.

---

What this SDK does

Token verification & middleware

• Verifies Authara-issued access tokens (JWT)
• Validates token properties:
  • issuer (iss)
  • audience (aud)
  • expiry (exp)
  • signature and key ID (kid)
• Injects authentication facts into context.Context
• Provides HTTP middleware for common auth patterns
• Exposes helpers for reading authentication facts from context

Backend client helpers (optional)

• Provides explicit, side-effect-free HTTP helpers for calling Authara endpoints from backend or SSR applications
• Forwards existing authentication context (access cookie) only
• Exposes identity data via dedicated helpers (e.g. GetCurrentUser)
• Offers a generic escape-hatch helper for user-defined Authara endpoints

These helpers are strict by design:

• no token refresh
• no retries
• no cookie mutation
• no redirect behavior

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What this SDK does NOT do

• Does not authenticate users
• Does not manage sessions
• Does not enforce authorization policy
• Does not perform background or implicit network calls

Exception: RequireAuthWithRefresh can perform a best-effort refresh call, but only if explicitly enabled via configuration.

All authentication, session management, refresh logic, and CSRF enforcement live exclusively in Authara itself, not in this SDK.

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Installation

go get github.com/alexlupatsiy/authara-go

---

Configuration (token verification)

sdk, err := authara.New(authara.Config{
	Issuer:   "https://example.com/auth",
	Audience: "app",
	Keys: map[string][]byte{
		"key-id": []byte("secret"),
	},
})
if err != nil {
	// handle configuration error
}

All fields are required:

• Issuer must exactly match the issuer configured in Authara
• Audience must match the intended token audience
• Keys maps JWT kid values to their signing secrets

Multiple keys may be provided to support key rotation.

---

Optional configuration (refresh support)

The SDK can optionally perform a single best-effort refresh when an access token is missing or invalid.

To enable refresh, configure the Authara base URL:

sdk, err := authara.New(authara.Config{
	Issuer:   "https://example.com/auth",
	Audience: "app",
	Keys: map[string][]byte{
		"key-id": []byte("secret"),
	},

	// Enables RequireAuthWithRefresh.
	AutharaBaseURL: "https://example.com",
})

Notes:

• Refresh is performed by calling Authara’s refresh endpoint and forwarding the incoming request cookies.
• Authara remains the only component that knows refresh semantics. The SDK only triggers refresh and re-verifies the new access token.
• If AutharaBaseURL is not set, refresh behavior is disabled.

A custom http.Client may be provided if needed:

sdk, err := authara.New(authara.Config{
	// ...
	AutharaBaseURL: "https://example.com",
	HTTPClient:      customHTTPClient,
})

---

HTTP middleware

Require authentication

r.Use(sdk.RequireAuth)

RequireAuth enforces authentication and behaves differently depending on the request type:

• Browser navigations (Accept: text/html)
  Redirects to /auth/login with a return_to parameter

• HTMX requests (HX-Request: true)
  Responds with HX-Redirect to trigger a full navigation

• API / SPA requests
  Responds with 401 Unauthorized (no redirect)

On success, authentication facts are injected into the request context.

---

Require authentication with refresh (recommended for SSR/HTMX)

r.Use(sdk.RequireAuthWithRefresh)

RequireAuthWithRefresh behaves like RequireAuth, but with one additional step:

• If the access cookie is missing or invalid, the middleware attempts a single best-effort refresh via Authara.
• If refresh succeeds, Authara returns Set-Cookie headers for the rotated refresh token and new access token.
• The middleware forwards those Set-Cookie headers to the client response and verifies the newly issued access token so the current request can proceed authenticated.

If refresh fails (or is disabled), it falls back to the same unauthenticated behavior as RequireAuth (redirect / HX-Redirect / 401 depending on request type).

This middleware is especially useful for SSR and HTMX apps, where redirect-based refresh can cause state loss or dropped mutation requests.

---

Optional authentication

r.Use(sdk.TryAuth)

TryAuth attempts to authenticate the request if a valid access token is present, but never blocks or redirects.

• If authenticated → user facts are attached to the context
• If unauthenticated → the request proceeds unchanged

This is useful for optional personalization.

---

Reading authentication facts

userID, ok := authara.UserIDFromContext(r.Context())
roles, _ := authara.RolesFromContext(r.Context())

The SDK exposes facts only:

• user identity
• session-derived roles

Your application decides what these facts mean and how to enforce authorization.

---

Backend client helpers

The SDK provides an optional backend client for calling Authara endpoints from server-side or SSR code.

Creating a client

client := authara.NewClient("https://auth.example.com")

A custom http.Client may be provided if needed:

client := authara.NewClient(
	"https://auth.example.com",
	authara.WithHTTPClient(customHTTPClient),
)

---

Fetching the current user

user, err := client.GetCurrentUser(ctx, r)
if err != nil {
	// unexpected error
}

if user == nil {
	// not authenticated
}

GetCurrentUser:

• forwards the Authara access cookie from the incoming request
• does not refresh tokens
• returns (nil, nil) if the request is unauthenticated
• returns an error only for unexpected failures

---

Generic request helper (escape hatch)

var result MyResponse

resp, err := authara.DoJSONRequest(
	ctx,
	client,
	http.MethodGet,
	"/auth/admin/custom-endpoint",
	r,
	&result,
)
if err != nil {
	// transport or decode error
}

if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
	// caller-defined handling
}

This helper:

• performs a raw HTTP request against Authara
• forwards authentication context if present
• decodes JSON only for successful (2xx) responses
• does not implement Authara semantics

Callers are responsible for interpreting HTTP status codes.

---

CSRF helpers

token, ok := authara.CSRFToken(r)
if ok {
	authara.AttachCSRF(req, token)
}

These helpers:

• read the Authara-issued CSRF token from the incoming request
• attach it to outgoing requests when needed

CSRF token generation and validation are fully owned by Authara.

---

Compatibility

• Compatible with Authara v1.x
• Safe for SSR, HTMX, and API-based applications

---

License

MIT