Authenticate a User

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This guide will cover registering users, logging in, and making an authenticated request.

:partial{content="quickstart-making-calls"}

Before You Start

You will need a Directus project.

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Create a posts collection with at least a title and content field. Follow the data modeling quickstart to learn more. Create a single item in the collection.

Creating a Role and a Policy

From your settings, navigate to User Roles and create a new role named "User". This role will later be applied to new users who register.

Within the role page, create a new policy named "Read Posts". Add a permission to the policy to allow Read action on posts collection.

Allow User Registration

From your settings, enable User Registration. Select the User role that was just created and disable the Verify Email setting.

Registering via the Data Studio

Log out of the Data Studio. From the Sign In screen, you will see a new option to Sign Up. Once a user is signed up, they will immediately be able to log in.

Registering via API

Open your terminal and run the following command to register a new user.

::code-group

curl \
	--request POST \
	--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
	--data '{ "email": "[email protected]", "password": "d1r3ctu5" }' \
	--url 'https://directus.example.com/users/register'

mutation {
	users_register(email: "[email protected]", password: "d1r3ctu5")
}

import { createDirectus, rest, registerUser } from '@directus/sdk';

const client = createDirectus('https://directus.example.com').with(rest());

const result = await client.request(registerUser('[email protected]', 'd1r3ctu5'));

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Go to the user directory in the module bar and you should see a new user has been created.

Logging In

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curl \
	--request POST \
	--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
	--data '{ "email": "[email protected]", "password": "d1r3ctu5" }' \
	--url 'https://directus.example.com/auth/login'

mutation {
	auth_login(email: "[email protected]", password: "d1r3ctu5") {
		access_token
		refresh_token
	}
}

import { createDirectus, authentication } from '@directus/sdk';

const email = "[email protected]";
const password = "d1r3ctu5";

const client = createDirectus('http://directus.example.com').with(authentication());

const token = await client.login({ email, password });

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Authenticating Requests

You can use the access token while making requests. If your token has expired, you must refresh it.

curl \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN' \
--url 'https://directus.example.com/items/posts'

::callout{icon="material-symbols:menu-book-outline" color="primary" to="/guides/auth/email-login"} Read more about refreshing tokens. ::

Next Steps

Read more about access tokens, access control, and then refer to the Users API reference to manage user accounts.

::callout{icon="material-symbols:code-blocks-rounded" color="green" to="/api/users"} Explore the Users API Reference. ::