GraphqlDevise

GraphQL interface on top of the Devise Token Auth (DTA) gem.

Table of Contents

• GraphqlDevise
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • Installation
    • Running the Generator
      • Mounting the Schema in a Separate Route
      • Mounting Operations in an Existing Schema (> v0.12.0)
  • Usage
    • Mounting Auth Schema on a Separate Route
    • Mounting Operations In an Existing Schema
    • Available Mount Options
    • Available Operations
    • Configuring Model
    • Email Reconfirmation
      • Current flow
    • Customizing Email Templates
    • I18n
    • Authenticating Controller Actions
      • Authenticate Resource in the Controller (>= v0.15.0)
        • Authentication Options
    • Making Requests
      • Introspection query
      • Mutations
    • Reset Password Flow
    • More Configuration Options
      • Devise Token Auth Initializer
      • Devise Initializer
    • GraphQL 2.0 Support (>= v1.0.0)
    • GraphQL Interpreter
    • Using Alongside Standard Devise
  • Changelog
  • Future Work
  • Buy Us a Coffee * BTC * ADA
  • Contributing
  • License

Introduction

Graphql-Devise heavily relies on 3 gems:

• GraphQL Ruby
• Devise Token Auth (DTA)
• Devise (which is a DTA dependency)

This gem provides a GraphQL interface on top of DTA which is designed for REST APIs. Features like token management, token expiration and everything up until using the actual GraphQL schema is still controlled by DTA. For that reason the gem's generator invokes DTA and Devise generators and creates initializer files for each one of them.

We strongly recommend getting familiar with DTA documentation to use this gem to its full potential. More configuration details available in configuration section

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'graphql_devise'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Running the Generator

Graphql Devise generator will execute Devise and Devise Token Auth generators to setup the gems in your project. You can customize them to your needs using their initializer files(one per gem) as usual.

$ bundle exec rails generate graphql_devise:install

The generator accepts 2 params and 1 option:

• user_class: Model name in which Devise modules will be included. This uses a find or create strategy. Defaults to User.
• mount_path: Path in which the dedicated graphql schema for devise will be mounted. Defaults to /graphql_auth.
• --mount: This options is available starting from v0.12.0, it allows you to mount the operations in your own schema instead of a dedicated one. When provided mount_path param is ignored.

Mounting the Schema in a Separate Route

To configure the gem to use a separate schema, the generator will use user_class and mount_path params. The route will be mounted in config/routes.rb. For instance the executing:

$ bundle exec rails g graphql_devise:install Admin api/auth

Will do the following:

• Execute Devise install generator
• Execute Devise Token Auth install generator with Admin and api/auth as params
  • Find or create Admin model
  • Add devise modules to Admin model
  • Other changes that you can find here
• Add the route to config/routes.rb
  • mount_graphql_devise_for Admin, at: 'api/auth'

Admin could be any model name you are going to be using for authentication, and api/auth could be any mount path you would like to use for auth.

Important

• Remember that by default this gem mounts a completely separate GraphQL schema on a separate controller in the route provided by the at option in the mount_graphql_devise_for method in the config/routes.rb file. If no at option is provided, the route will be /graphql_auth.
• Avoid passing the --mount option if you want to use a separate route and schema.

Mounting Operations in an Existing Schema (> v0.12.0)

To configure the gem to use an existing GQL schema use the --mount option. For instance the executing:

$ bundle exec rails g graphql_devise:install Admin --mount MySchema

Will do the following:

• Execute Devise install generator
• Execute Devise Token Auth install generator with Admin and api/auth as params
  • Find or create Admin model
  • Add devise modules to Admin model
  • Other changes that you can find here
  • Add SchemaPlugin to the specified schema.

Important

• When using the --mount option the mount_path param is ignored.
• The generator will look for your schema under app/graphql/ directory. We are expecting the name of the file is the same as the as the one passed in the mount option transformed with underscore. In the example, passing MySchema, will try to find the file app/graphql/my_schema.rb.
• You can actually mount a resource's auth schema in a separate route and in your app's schema at the same time, but that's probably not a common scenario.

Usage

GraphqlDevise operations can be used in two ways:

• Using a separate schema via mount_graphql_devise_for helper in the routes file.
• Using your own schema by adding a plugin in the class.

Creating a separate schema is the default option, the generator will do that by default.

Mounting Auth Schema on a Separate Route

You can mount this gem's GraphQL auth schema in your routes file like this:

# config/routes.rb

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  mount_graphql_devise_for(
    User,
    at: 'api/v1',
    authenticatable_type: Types::MyCustomUserType,
    operations: {
      login: Mutations::Login
    },
    skip: [:register],
    # optional, use only if you need a specific base controller to mount the new actions
    base_controller: ApiController,
    additional_mutations: {
      # generates mutation { adminUserSignUp }
      admin_user_sign_up: Mutations::AdminUserSignUp
    },
    additional_queries: {
      # generates query { publicUserByUuid }
      public_user_by_uuid: Resolvers::UserByUuid
    }
  )
end

This can be done using the generator or manually. The second argument of the mount_graphql_devise method is a hash of options where you can customize how the queries and mutations are mounted into the schema. For a list of available options go here

Mounting Operations In an Existing Schema

Starting with v0.12.0 you can mount the GQL operations provided by this gem into an existing schema in your app.

# app/graphql/dummy_schema.rb

class DummySchema < GraphQL::Schema
  # It's important that this line goes before setting the query and mutation type on your
  # schema in graphql versions < 1.10.0
  use GraphqlDevise::SchemaPlugin.new(
    query:            Types::QueryType,
    mutation:         Types::MutationType,
    resource_loaders: [
      GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader.new(User, only: [:login, :confirm_registration_with_token])
    ]
  )

  mutation(Types::MutationType)
  query(Types::QueryType)
end

The example above describes just one of the possible scenarios you might need. The second argument of the GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader initializer is a hash of options where you can customize how the queries and mutations are mounted into the schema. For a list of available options go here.

It's important to use the plugin in your schema before assigning the mutation and query type to it in graphql versions < 1.10.0. Otherwise the auth operations won't be available.

You can provide as many resource loaders as you need to the resource_loaders option, and each of those will be loaded into your schema. These are the options you can initialize the SchemaPlugin with:

1. query: This param is mandatory unless you skip all queries via the resource loader options. This should be the same QueryType you provide to the query method in your schema.
2. mutation: This param mandatory unless you skip all mutations via the resource loader options. This should be the same MutationType you provide to the mutation method in your schema.
3. resource_loaders: This is an optional array of GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader instances. Here is where you specify the operations that you want to load into your app's schema. If no loader is provided, no operations will be added to your schema, but you will still be able to authenticate queries and mutations selectively. More on this in the controller authentication section.
4. authenticate_default: This is a boolean value which is true by default. This value defines what is the default behavior for authentication in your schema fields. true means every root level field requires authentication unless specified otherwise using the authenticate: false option on the field. false means your root level fields won't require authentication unless specified otherwise using the authenticate: true option on the field.
5. unauthenticated_proc: This param is optional. Here you can provide a proc that receives one argument (field name) and is called whenever a field that requires authentication is called without an authenticated resource. By default a GraphQL::ExecutionError will be raised if authentication fails. This will provide a GQL like error message on the response.
6. public_introspection: The introspection query is a very useful GQL resource that provides information about what queries the schema supports. This query is very powerful and there may be some case in which you want to limit its usage to authenticated users. To accomplish this the schema plugin provides the public_introspection option. This option accepts a boolean value and by default will consider introspection queries public in all environments but production.

Available Mount Options

Both the mount_graphql_devise_for method and the GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader class take the same options. So, wether you decide to mount this gem in a separate route from your main application's schema or you use our GraphqlDevise::SchemaPlugin to load this gem's auth operation into your schema, these are the options you can provide as a hash.

# Using the mount method in your config/routes.rb file
mount_graphql_devise_for(User, {})

# Providing options to a GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader
GraphqlDevise::ResourceLoader.new(User, {})

1. at: Route where the GraphQL schema will be mounted on the Rails server. In this example your API will have these two routes: POST /api/v1/graphql_auth and GET /api/v1/graphql_auth. If this option is not specified, the schema will be mounted at /graphql_auth. This option only works if you are using the mount method.
2. operations: Specifying this is optional. Here you can override default behavior by specifying your own mutations and queries for every GraphQL operation. Check available operations in this file mutations and queries. All mutations and queries are built so you can extend default behavior just by extending our default classes and yielding your customized code after calling super, example here.
3. authenticatable_type: By default, the gem will add an authenticatable field to every mutation and an authenticatable type to every query. Gem will try to use Types::<model>Type by default, so in our example you could define Types::UserType and every query and mutation will use it. But, you can override this type with this option like in the example.
4. base_controller: Specifying this is optional. By default the controller used to mount the route is GraphqlDevise::ApplicationController which inherits from ActionController::API or ActionController::Base depending on the rails version of the main project. This option allows you to set the controller used as the parent of the controller where the route will be mounted. This config is similar to Devise's base_controller config but in this case each route can have a different parent controller. This option only works if you are using the mount method.
5. skip: An array of the operations that should not be available in the authentication schema. All these operations are symbols and should belong to the list of available operations in the gem.
6. only: An array of the operations that should be available in the authentication schema. The skip and only options are mutually exclusive, an error will be raised if you pass both to the mount method.
7. additional_mutations: Here you can add as many mutations as you need, for those features that don't fully match the provided default mutations and queries. You need to provide a hash to this option, and each key will be the name of the mutation on the schema. Also, the value provided must be a valid mutation. This is similar to what you can accomplish with devise_scope.
8. additional_queries: Here you can add as many queries as you need, for those features that don't fully match the provided default mutations and queries. You need to provide a hash to this option, and each key will be the name of the query on the schema. Also, the value provided must be a valid Resolver. This is also similar to what you can accomplish with devise_scope.

Additional mutations and queries will be added to the schema regardless of other options you might have specified like skip or only. Additional queries and mutations is usually a good place for other operations on your schema that require no authentication (like sign_up). Also by adding them through the mount method, your mutations and resolvers can inherit from our base mutation or base resolver respectively, to take advantage of some of the methods provided by devise just like with devise_scope

Available Operations

The following is a list of the symbols you can provide to the operations, skip and only options of the mount method:

:login
:logout
:register
:update_password_with_token
:send_password_reset_with_token
:resend_confirmation_with_token
:confirm_registration_with_token

Configuring Model

Just like with Devise and DTA, you need to include a module in your authenticatable model, so with our example, your user model will have to look like this:

# app/models/user.rb

class User < ApplicationRecord
  devise :database_authenticatable,
         :registerable,
         :recoverable,
         :rememberable,
         :trackable,
         :lockable,
         :validatable,
         :confirmable

  # including after calling the `devise` method is important.
  include GraphqlDevise::Authenticatable
end

The install generator can do this for you if you specify the user_class option. See Installation for details.

Email Reconfirmation

We want reconfirmable in this gem to work separately from DTA's or Devise (too much complexity in the model based on callbacks).

Email reconfirmation is supported just like in Devise and DTA, but we want reconfirmable in this gem to work on model basis instead of having a global configuration like in Devise. For this reason Devise's global reconfirmable setting is ignored.

For a resource to be considered reconfirmable it has to meet 2 conditions:

1. Include the :confirmable module.
2. Has an unconfirmed_email column in the resource's table.

In order to trigger the reconfirmation email in a reconfirmable resource, you simply need to call a different update method on your resource,update_with_email. When the resource is not reconfirmable or the email is not updated, this method behaves exactly the same as ActiveRecord's update.

Current flow

update_with_email requires one additional attribute when email will change or an error will be raised:

• confirmation_url: The full url of your client application. The confirmation email will contain this url plus a confirmation token. You need to call confirmRegistrationWithToken with the given token on your client application.

So, it's up to you where you require confirmation of changing emails. Here's a demonstration on the method usage:

user.update_with_email(
  name:             'New Name',
  email:            '[email protected]',
  confirmation_url: 'https://google.com'
)

Customizing Email Templates

The approach of this gem is a bit different from DeviseTokenAuth. We have placed our templates in app/views/graphql_devise/mailer, so if you want to change them, place yours on the same dir structure on your Rails project. You can customize these two templates:

1. app/views/graphql_devise/mailer/confirmation_instructions.html.erb
2. app/views/graphql_devise/mailer/reset_password_instructions.html.erb

The main reason for this difference is just to make it easier to have both Standard Devise and this gem running at the same time. Check these files to see the available helper methods you can use in your views.

I18n

GraphQL Devise supports locales. For example, the graphql_devise.confirmations.send_instructions locale setting supports the %{email} variable in case you would like to include it in the resend confirmation instructions for the user. Take a look at our locale file to see all of the available messages.

Keep in mind that if your app uses multiple locales, you should set the I18n.locale accordingly. You can learn how to do this here.

Authenticating Controller Actions

When mounting the operation is in you own schema instead of a dedicated one, you will need to authenticate users in your controllers, just like in DTA. There are 2 alternatives to accomplish this.

Authenticate Resource in the Controller (>= v0.15.0)

This authentication mechanism sets the resource by token in the controller, or it doesn't if credentials are invalid. You simply need to pass the return value of our gql_devise_context method in the context of your GQL schema execution like this:

# app/controllers/my_controller.rb

class MyController < ApplicationController
  include GraphqlDevise::SetUserByToken

  def my_action
    result = DummySchema.execute(params[:query], context: gql_devise_context(User))
    render json: result unless performed?
  end
end

gql_devise_context receives as many models as you need to authenticate in the request, like this:

# app/controllers/my_controller.rb

class MyController < ApplicationController
  include GraphqlDevise::SetUserByToken

  def my_action
    result = DummySchema.execute(params[:query], context: gql_devise_context(User, Admin))
    render json: result unless performed?
  end
end

Internally in your own mutations and queries a key current_resource will be available in the context if a resource was successfully authenticated or nil otherwise.

Keep in mind that sending multiple models to the gql_devise_context method means that depending on who makes the request, the context value current_resource might contain instances of the different models you provided.

Note: If for any reason you need more control over how users are authenticated, you can use the authenticate_model method anywhere in your controller. The method will return the authenticated resource or nil if authentication fails. It will also set the instance variable @resource in the controller.

Please note that by using this mechanism your GQL schema will be in control of what queries are restricted to authenticated users and you can only do this at the root level fields of your GQL schema. Configure the plugin as explained here so this can work.

Authentication Options

Whether you setup authentications as a default in the plugin, or you do it at the field level, these are the options you can use:

1. Any truthy value: If current_resource is not .present?, query will return an authentication error.
2. A callable object: Provided object will be called with current_resource as the only argument if current_resource is .present?. If return value of the callable object is false, query will return an authentication error.

In your main app's schema this is how you might specify if a field needs to be authenticated or not:

module Types
  class QueryType < Types::BaseObject
    # user field used the default set in the Plugin's initializer
    field :user, resolver: Resolvers::UserShow
    # this field will never require authentication
    field :public_field, String, null: false, authenticate: false
    # this field requires authentication
    field :private_field, String, null: false, authenticate: true
    # this field requires authenticated users to also be admins
    field :admin_field, String, null: false, authenticate: ->(user) { user.admin? }
  end
end

Making Requests

Here is a list of the available mutations and queries assuming your mounted model is User.

Introspection query

If you are using the schema plugin, you can require authentication before doing an introspection query by modifying the public_introspection option of the plugin. Check the plugin config section for more information.

Mutations

Reset Password Flow

This gem supports two password recovery flows. The most recently implemented is preferred and requires less steps. More detail on how it works can be found here.

More Configuration Options

As mentioned in the introduction there are many configurations that will change how this gem behaves. You can change this values on the initializer files generated by the installer.

Devise Token Auth Initializer

The generated initializer file config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb has all the available options documented as comments. You can also use DTA's docs as a reference. In this section the most important configurations will be highlighted.

• change_headers_on_each_request: This configurations defaults to false. This will allow you to store the credentials for as long as the token life_span permits. And you can send the same credentials in each request. Setting this to true means that tokens will change on each request you make, and the new values will be returned in the headers. So your client needs to handle this.
• batch_request_buffer_throttle: When change_headers_on_each_request is set to true, you might still want your credentials to be valid more than once as you might send parallel request. The duration you set here will determine how long the same credentials work after the first request is received.
• token_lifespan: This configuration takes a duration and you can set it to a value like 1.month, 2.weeks, 1.hour, etc.

Note: Remember this gem adds a layer on top of DTA, so some configurations might not apply.

Devise Initializer

The generated initializer file config/initializers/devise_token_auth.rb has all the available options documented as comments. You can also use Devise's docs as a reference. In this section the most important configurations will be highlighted.

• password_length: You can change this value to validate password length on sign up and password update (must enable the validatable module).
• mailer_sender: Set it to a string with the sender's email address like '[email protected]'.
• case_insensitive_keys: Setting a value like [:email] will make email field case insensitive on login, sign up, etc.
• email_regexp: You can customize the regex that will validate the format of email addresses (must enable the validatable module).

Note: Remember this gem adds a layer on top of Devise, so some configurations might not apply.

GraphQL 2.0 Support (>= v1.0.0)

This gem now supports GraphQL Ruby v2. There's one manual step you need to take in order for this to work.

You need a custom field_class in your MutationType and QueryType. If you don't have one setup already, you can simply add the one this gem provides, like this:

module Types
  class MutationType < BaseObject
    field_class GraphqlDevise::Types::BaseField
  end
end

module Types
  class QueryType < Types::BaseObject
    field_class GraphqlDevise::Types::BaseField
  end
end

If you already have a field_class defined in any of your types, the only thing you need to do is add another kwarg to that class initializer (authenticate) and make that value available through an attribute reader.

The next example is this gem's implementation of a custom class, but you can implement your own however you see fit as long as you expose an authenticate public method with the value that was passed to the initializer.

module GraphqlDevise
  module Types
    class BaseField < GraphQL::Schema::Field
      def initialize(*args, authenticate: nil, **kwargs, &block)
        @authenticate = authenticate
        super(*args, **kwargs, &block)
      end

      attr_reader :authenticate
    end
  end
end

GraphQL Interpreter

GraphQL-Ruby >= 1.9.0 includes a new runtime module which you may use for your schema. Eventually, it will become the default. You can read more about it here.

This gem supports schemas using the interpreter and it is recommended as it introduces several improvements which focus mainly on performance.

Using Alongside Standard Devise

The DeviseTokenAuth gem allows experimental use of the standard Devise gem to be configured at the same time, for more information you can check this answer here.

This gem supports the same and should be easier to handle email templates due to the fact we don't override standard Devise templates.

Changelog

Full list of changes in CHANGELOG.md

Future Work

We will continue to improve the gem and add better docs.

1. Make sure this gem can correctly work alongside DTA and the original Devise gem.
2. Improve DOCS.
3. Add support for unlockable and other Devise modules.
4. Add feature specs for confirm account and reset password flows.

We will continue to build better docs for the gem after this first release, but in the mean time you can use our specs to better understand how to use the gem. Also, the dummy app used in our specs will give you a clear idea on how to configure the gem on your Rails application.

Buy Us a Coffee

If you'd like to support our work, you are welcome to do so!

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Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/graphql-devise/graphql_devise.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.