Token Data - Payload

During the lifecycle of a request you will be able to access the data you have configured to be stored in the JWT by accessing req.user. The user object is automatically appended to the request for you.

Defining Token Data

You can specify what data gets encoded to the Cookie/JWT-Token by setting saveToJWT property on fields within your auth collection.

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Users: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'users',
  auth: true,
  fields: [
    {
      // will be stored in the JWT
      saveToJWT: true,
      type: 'select',
      name: 'role',
      options: ['super-admin', 'user'],
    },
    {
      // the entire object will be stored in the JWT
      // tab fields can do the same thing!
      saveToJWT: true,
      type: 'group',
      name: 'group1',
      fields: [
        {
          type: 'text',
          name: 'includeField',
        },
        {
          // will be omitted from the JWT
          saveToJWT: false,
          type: 'text',
          name: 'omitField',
        },
      ],
    },
    {
      type: 'group',
      name: 'group2',
      fields: [
        {
          // will be stored in the JWT
          // but stored at the top level
          saveToJWT: true,
          type: 'text',
          name: 'includeField',
        },
        {
          type: 'text',
          name: 'omitField',
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
}

<Banner type="success"> **Tip:**

If you wish to use a different key other than the field name, you can define saveToJWT as a string.

</Banner>

Using Token Data

This is especially helpful when writing Hooks and Access Control that depend on user defined fields.

import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'

export const Invoices: CollectionConfig = {
  slug: 'invoices',
  access: {
    read: ({ req, data }) => {
      if (!req?.user) return false
      // highlight-start
      if ({ req.user?.role === 'super-admin'}) {
        return true
      }
      // highlight-end
      return data.owner === req.user.id
    }
  }
  fields: [
    {
      name: 'owner',
      relationTo: 'users'
    },
    // ... other fields
  ],
}