Netlify Identity

Netlify Identity

Netlify Identity is a user management service for signups, logins, password recovery, user metadata, and role-based access control. It is built on GoTrue and issues JSON Web Tokens (JWTs).

Always use @netlify/identity for new projects. netlify-identity-widget and gotrue-js still work and are maintained, but are no longer the recommended choice. @netlify/identity provides a unified, headless TypeScript API that works in both browser and server contexts (Netlify Functions, Edge Functions, SSR frameworks).

Identity is app-level — don't confuse it with site access control

Netlify Identity manages your app's end users (signups, logins, roles) and issues the nf_jwt cookie. It is a different layer from Secure Access / Password Protection, which gates who can load the site at all (Basic shared-password is Pro+; team-login/SAML gating is Enterprise), and from Team/Org SAML SSO, which controls who can log in to the Netlify dashboard. The same provider can appear in more than one (Google, say): Google as an Identity OAuth provider signs in app users; Google as a SAML IdP signs in Netlify team members. They are unrelated systems with separate sessions, which is where the confusion comes from.

If the task involves "lock this site to my company," "only employees can access it," password protection, or SSO at the site/team level, read the netlify-access-control skill first to pick the right layer. This skill covers the app-level user-management layer only.

Dashboard configuration (user handoff required)

All Identity instance configuration is dashboard-only — there is no public API. The agent owns the code, deploys, and the handoff checklist; the user owns flipping dashboard settings. Outside of a Netlify Agent Runner deploy, the Identity instance must be enabled in the dashboard before any auth flow will work. If you write Identity code first and only discover this when /.netlify/identity/signup 404s after a production deploy, that's wasted work — surface the dashboard handoff up front instead.

Dashboard URL pattern: https://app.netlify.com/projects/<project-slug>/configuration/identity (it's under project configuration — not under Integrations, and not a top-level sidebar item).

Dashboard-only operations

• Enable Identity — turns the Identity instance on for the site. Required before any auth flow works.
• Registration mode — Open (anyone can sign up, the default) or Invite only.
• Autoconfirm — ON skips the email-confirmation step on signup; OFF requires the new user to click a confirmation email before they can log in.
• External providers — Add Google / GitHub / GitLab / Bitbucket. The "Use Netlify's app" option means no client_id/secret needed — good for prototypes. Adding an OAuth provider does NOT disable email/password — email/password is always available unless the front-end omits it.
• Custom email templates / SMTP — advanced; out of scope for typical prototypes.

There is no CLI command and no public API for any of these. Do not curl https://api.netlify.com/... to flip toggles, do not read auth tokens out of ~/Library/Preferences/netlify/config.json, and do not probe for an undocumented endpoint. Give the user the dashboard URL and exact checklist instead.

Agent/user sequence

1. Agent asks any missing auth-shape questions before scaffolding.
2. Agent writes the Identity code and runs a draft deploy.
3. User enables Identity and any OAuth providers in the dashboard using the handoff checklist.
4. Agent verifies the draft URL and then runs the production deploy.

Recommended settings per use case

Handoff checklist

When the dashboard work is needed, give the user a copy-pasteable checklist between the draft deploy and the production deploy — not after the prod deploy fails:

Before this works end-to-end, flip these in the Netlify dashboard at
https://app.netlify.com/projects/<your-slug>/configuration/identity:

- [ ] Identity → Enable
- [ ] Registration → Open (default) or Invite only
- [ ] Autoconfirm → ON for prototypes; OFF for prod with email confirmation
- [ ] External providers → Add Google (etc.) with "Use Netlify's app"

Tell me when these are flipped and I'll run the production deploy.

Before you build

If the prompt didn't already specify, ask the user a few short questions before scaffolding any auth code — the answers shape both the dashboard config above and the auth UI you'll write:

• Should the whole site be locked so only your company/team can even load it (a perimeter), should it be public with per-user accounts inside the app, or both? This decides whether Netlify Identity alone is enough or you also need site-level access control — if "company-only" or "both" comes up, check the netlify-access-control skill before scaffolding.
• Which sign-in methods should this app expose: email/password, OAuth, or both?
• Which parts of the app need authenticated access: the whole app, specific routes, or only specific actions?
• Who can create accounts: public signup or invite-only?
• Should new email/password users be able to log in immediately for a prototype (Autoconfirm ON), or confirm by email first for production (Autoconfirm OFF)?
• Which OAuth providers should be enabled (Google, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket)?

If you don't have preferences here, tell me what you want overall and I'll pick sensible defaults — typically email/password + Google OAuth, autoconfirm ON, registration Open for a prototype.

Asking these after coding causes rework — both the auth UI shape and the dashboard config fall out of these answers.

When something fails, surface and stop

If a deploy fails, an Identity callback 404s, an OAuth flow doesn't return, or /.netlify/identity/* is unreachable — report the failure to the user with the deploy log URL, the exact error, and the site URL, then stop. Do not curl the Netlify API to "fix" the Identity instance, do not invent recovery commands, do not bypass the dashboard. Identity instance state has no public API to repair; the recovery is to hand the user the dashboard URL, the setting to check, and the observed failure.

Never hardcode secrets

Never hardcode secrets. Identity URLs, GoTrue endpoints, and OAuth client_id/secret values do not belong in client or server code — configure OAuth credentials in the Netlify dashboard, not the frontend, and store anything sensitive as a Netlify environment variable (mark it secret). The Identity admin token is not one of these: you don't set or read it — the Netlify Functions runtime injects it automatically for admin.* calls made inside a Function (see Authorization and sessions). Never hardcode an admin token or expose admin operations to the browser.

Setup

npm install @netlify/identity

The Identity instance must be enabled in the dashboard first (see Dashboard configuration above). The one exception: a deploy created by a Netlify Agent Runner session that includes Identity code auto-enables the instance.

Local Development

Identity does not currently work with netlify dev. You must deploy to Netlify to test Identity features. Use npx netlify deploy for preview deploys during development. This limitation may be resolved in a future release.

Quick Start

Log in from the browser:

import { login, getUser } from '@netlify/identity'

const user = await login('user@example.com', '<password>')
console.log(`Hello, ${user.name}`)

// Later, check auth state
const currentUser = await getUser()

Protect a Netlify Function:

// netlify/functions/protected.mts
import { getUser } from '@netlify/identity'
import type { Context } from '@netlify/functions'

export default async (req: Request, context: Context) => {
  const user = await getUser()
  if (!user) return new Response('Unauthorized', { status: 401 })
  return Response.json({ id: user.id, email: user.email })
}

getUser() reads the request's nf_jwt cookie automatically — no argument is needed in a function or edge function. Server-side auth (getUser, login, admin.*) requires a modern v2 function (export default); v1 Lambda-compatible functions (export { handler }) are not supported.

Core API

Import and use headless functions directly:

import {
  getUser,
  handleAuthCallback,
  login,
  logout,
  signup,
  oauthLogin,
  onAuthChange,
  getSettings,
} from '@netlify/identity'

Login

import { login, AuthError } from '@netlify/identity'

async function handleLogin(email: string, password: string) {
  try {
    const user = await login(email, password)
    showSuccess(`Welcome back, ${user.name ?? user.email}`)
  } catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof AuthError) {
      // Bad credentials → GoTrue returns 400 (invalid_grant) server-side; in the
      // browser the status is undefined, so fall back to the message there.
      showError(error.status === 400 ? 'Invalid email or password.' : error.message)
    }
  }
}

Signup

After signup, check user.emailVerified to determine if the user was auto-confirmed or needs to confirm their email.

import { signup, AuthError } from '@netlify/identity'

async function handleSignup(email: string, password: string, name: string) {
  try {
    const user = await signup(email, password, { full_name: name })
    if (user.emailVerified) {
      // Autoconfirm ON — user is logged in immediately
      showSuccess('Account created. You are now logged in.')
    } else {
      // Autoconfirm OFF — confirmation email sent
      showSuccess('Check your email to confirm your account.')
    }
  } catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof AuthError) {
      showError(error.status === 403 ? 'Signups are not allowed.' : error.message)
    }
  }
}

Logout

import { logout } from '@netlify/identity'

await logout()

OAuth

When Netlify Identity is the goal, never build a from-scratch third-party OAuth flow. Don't tell the user to go register their own Google/GitHub OAuth app, don't ask for a client_id/secret, and don't write your own /auth/callback token-exchange handler. Identity already brokers the OAuth handshake: the provider is enabled in the dashboard with the "Use Netlify's app" option (no credentials needed — see the handoff checklist above), and your code just calls oauthLogin(provider) + handleAuthCallback(). Scaffolding raw OAuth alongside Identity is the single most common source of rework in this flow — it produces two competing auth systems that then have to be untangled by hand. Custom OAuth credentials exist only to brand the consent screen, and even then they're pasted into the dashboard, not wired into app code.

OAuth is a two-step flow: oauthLogin(provider) redirects away from the site, then handleAuthCallback() processes the redirect when the user returns.

import { oauthLogin } from '@netlify/identity'

// Step 1: Redirect to provider (navigates away — never returns)
function handleOAuthClick(provider: 'google' | 'github' | 'gitlab' | 'bitbucket') {
  oauthLogin(provider)
}

Providers must be enabled in the dashboard before oauthLogin() works — see Dashboard configuration above. Registration is Open by default, so OAuth users can create accounts without any extra signup-related configuration; only the provider itself must be enabled.

Email/password is always available as a login method — there is no "Email provider" toggle in Identity settings, only External providers for OAuth. To restrict users to OAuth-only, omit the email/password form from your UI; the front-end is the gate.

Handling Callbacks

Always call handleAuthCallback() on page load in any app that uses OAuth, password recovery, invites, or email confirmation. It processes all callback types via the URL hash.

import { handleAuthCallback, AuthError } from '@netlify/identity'

async function processCallback() {
  try {
    const result = await handleAuthCallback()
    if (!result) return // No callback hash — normal page load

    switch (result.type) {
      case 'oauth':
        showSuccess(`Logged in as ${result.user?.email}`)
        break
      case 'confirmation':
        showSuccess('Email confirmed. You are now logged in.')
        break
      case 'recovery':
        // User is authenticated but must set a new password
        showPasswordResetForm(result.user)
        break
      case 'invite':
        // User must set a password to accept the invite
        showInviteAcceptForm(result.token)
        break
      case 'email_change':
        showSuccess('Email address updated.')
        break
    }
  } catch (error) {
    if (error instanceof AuthError) showError(error.message)
  }
}

Auth State

import { getUser, onAuthChange, AUTH_EVENTS } from '@netlify/identity'

// Check current user (never throws — returns null if not authenticated)
const user = await getUser()

// Subscribe to auth state changes (returns unsubscribe function)
const unsubscribe = onAuthChange((event, user) => {
  switch (event) {
    case AUTH_EVENTS.LOGIN:
      console.log('Logged in:', user?.email)
      break
    case AUTH_EVENTS.LOGOUT:
      console.log('Logged out')
      break
    case AUTH_EVENTS.TOKEN_REFRESH:
      break
    case AUTH_EVENTS.USER_UPDATED:
      console.log('Profile updated:', user?.email)
      break
    case AUTH_EVENTS.RECOVERY:
      console.log('Password recovery initiated')
      break
  }
})

Settings-Driven UI

You cannot see a project's live Identity configuration while you are writing the code — there is no API, MCP tool, or CLI command that reports whether Identity is enabled or which providers are on; that state lives in the dashboard. So don't hard-code which providers exist. Call getSettings() at startup and render the signup form and OAuth buttons from what it returns, so the UI matches whatever the user actually enabled — and a provider you assumed was on but isn't won't render a dead button. (getSettings() hits /.netlify/identity/settings and works against any origin serving the page, including localhost under netlify dev, which proxies to the live service — but it can't tell you anything pre-run, so ask the user what's configured while you're still scaffolding.)

import { getSettings } from '@netlify/identity'

const settings = await getSettings()
// settings.autoconfirm — boolean
// settings.disableSignup — boolean
// settings.providers — Record<AuthProvider, boolean>

if (!settings.disableSignup) showSignupForm()

for (const [provider, enabled] of Object.entries(settings.providers)) {
  if (enabled) showOAuthButton(provider)
}

Minimal React Example

import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
import {
  getUser,
  handleAuthCallback,
  login,
  logout,
  oauthLogin,
  onAuthChange,
} from '@netlify/identity'

function App() {
  const [user, setUser] = useState(null)
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true)

  useEffect(() => {
    ;(async () => {
      await handleAuthCallback()
      setUser(await getUser())
      setLoading(false)
    })()
    return onAuthChange((_event, currentUser) => setUser(currentUser))
  }, [])

  const handleLogin = async (email, password) => {
    const currentUser = await login(email, password)
    setUser(currentUser)
  }

  const handleGoogleLogin = () => oauthLogin('google')

  const handleSignOut = async () => {
    await logout()
    setUser(null)
  }

  if (loading) return <p>Loading...</p>
  // Render login form or user details based on `user` state
}

Error Handling

@netlify/identity throws two error classes:

• AuthError — Thrown by auth operations. Has message, optional status (HTTP status code), and optional cause.
• MissingIdentityError — Thrown when Identity is not configured in the current environment.

getUser() and isAuthenticated() never throw — they return null and false respectively on failure.

Note: in the browser, login() surfaces gotrue-js failures as an AuthError with status undefined (the HTTP status isn't propagated), so don't branch on status for bad-credentials UX there — fall back to error.message. Server-side (login() in a Function) passes the real status through, so 400 is reliable.

Identity Event Functions

Functions can subscribe to Identity lifecycle events by exporting an object whose properties are named event handlers. See the netlify-functions skill for the full event-handler pattern.

The typed handler API below (the userSignup/userValidate/… object export, the typed *Event types, and event.deny()) requires @netlify/functions ≥ 5.2.0 — it isn't present in 5.1.x. On older installs, use the legacy filename convention described at the end of this section.

Available identity handlers:

Each handler receives a typed event with a parsed user object (camelCase fields: appMetadata, userMetadata, confirmedAt, etc.).

Mutate the user

Return { user: ... } to substitute the user record before it's persisted. This is the common pattern for role assignment at signup.

// netlify/functions/identity.mts
import type { UserSignupEvent } from '@netlify/functions'

export default {
  userSignup(event: UserSignupEvent) {
    return {
      user: {
        ...event.user,
        appMetadata: {
          ...event.user.appMetadata,
          roles: ['member'],
        },
      },
    }
  },
}

Deny an action

Call event.deny() to reject a signup, login, validation, or modification. The end user receives a 401. Do not throw — event.deny() is the canonical denial mechanism and does not produce an error in observability.

import type { UserValidateEvent } from '@netlify/functions'

export default {
  userValidate(event: UserValidateEvent) {
    if (!event.user.email?.endsWith('@example.com')) {
      return event.deny()
    }
  },
}

If multiple functions subscribe to the same event, the first to call event.deny() aborts the chain — subsequent functions are not invoked.

Legacy filename convention

The previous syntax — files named identity-validate.ts, identity-signup.ts, identity-login.ts, exporting handler and signaling denial via non-2xx response — still works. New functions should prefer the typed handler syntax above.

Roles and Authorization

First Admin User

The first admin user cannot be created through code alone. You must direct the user to set it up through the Netlify UI:

1. Go to Project configuration > Identity in the Netlify dashboard (https://app.netlify.com/projects/<project-slug>/configuration/identity)
2. Click Invite users and enter the admin user's email address
3. After the user accepts the invite, click the user in the Identity list to open their detail page
4. In the Roles field, add the admin role and save

Once the first admin exists, subsequent users can be managed programmatically using Identity event functions (e.g., assigning roles in identity-signup) or role-based redirects.

• app_metadata.roles — Server-controlled. Only settable via the Netlify UI, admin API, or Identity event functions. Never let users set their own roles.
• user_metadata — User-controlled. Users can update via updateUser({ data: { ... } }).

Role-Based Redirects

# netlify.toml
[[redirects]]
  from = "/admin/*"
  to = "/admin/:splat"
  status = 200
  conditions = { Role = ["admin"] }

[[redirects]]
  from = "/admin/*"
  to = "/"
  status = 302

Rules are evaluated top-to-bottom. The nf_jwt cookie is read by the CDN to evaluate role conditions.

References

• Advanced patterns — password recovery, invite acceptance, email change, session hydration, SSR integration
• Authorization and sessions — where role gating is actually enforced (server-side vs client-side / SPA navigation), admin operations being Functions-runtime-only, and why a role change doesn't apply until the JWT refreshes