Build a User Management App with Refine

<$Partial path="quickstart_intro.mdx" />

If you get stuck while working through this guide, refer to the full example on GitHub.

About Refine

Refine is a React-based framework used to rapidly build data-heavy applications like admin panels, dashboards, storefronts and any type of CRUD apps. It separates app concerns into individual layers, each backed by a React context and respective provider object. For example, the auth layer represents a context served by a specific set of authProvider methods that carry out authentication and authorization actions such as logging in, logging out, getting roles data, etc. Similarly, the data layer offers another level of abstraction equipped with dataProvider methods to handle CRUD operations at appropriate backend API endpoints.

Refine provides hassle-free integration with a Supabase backend with its supplementary @refinedev/supabase package. It generates authProvider and dataProvider methods at project initialization, so you don't need to spend much effort defining them yourself, choose Supabase as the backend service while creating the app with create refine-app.

<$Partial path="project_setup.mdx" variables={{ "framework": "refine", "tab": "frameworks" }} />

Building the app

Start building the Refine app from scratch.

Initialize a Refine app

Use create refine-app command to initialize an app. Run the following in the terminal:

npm create refine-app@latest -- --preset refine-supabase

The command above uses the refine-supabase preset which chooses the Supabase supplementary package for the app. There's no UI framework, so the app has a headless UI with plain React and CSS styling.

The refine-supabase preset installs the @refinedev/supabase package which out-of-the-box includes the Supabase dependency: supabase-js.

Install the @refinedev/react-hook-form and react-hook-form packages that to use React Hook Form inside Refine apps. Run:

npm install @refinedev/react-hook-form react-hook-form

Refine supabaseClient

The create refine-app generated a Supabase client in the src/utility/supabaseClient.ts file. It has two constants: SUPABASE_URL and SUPABASE_KEY. Replace them as supabaseUrl and supabasePublishableKey respectively and assign them your Supabase server's values.

Update it with environment variables managed by Vite:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/utility/supabaseClient.ts" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/utility/supabaseClient.ts" />

Save the environment variables in a .env.local file. All you need are the API URL and the key that you copied earlier.

VITE_SUPABASE_URL=YOUR_SUPABASE_URL
VITE_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=YOUR_SUPABASE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY

The supabaseClient fetches calls to Supabase endpoints from the app. The client is instrumental in implementing authentication using Refine's auth provider methods and CRUD actions with appropriate data provider methods.

One optional step is to update the CSS file src/App.css to make the app look nice. You can find the full contents of this file here.

In order to add login and user profile pages in this App, tweak the <Refine /> component inside App.tsx.

The <Refine /> component

The App.tsx file initially looks like this:

<$CodeTabs>

import { Refine, WelcomePage } from '@refinedev/core'
import { RefineKbar, RefineKbarProvider } from '@refinedev/kbar'
import routerProvider, {
  DocumentTitleHandler,
  UnsavedChangesNotifier,
} from '@refinedev/react-router'
import { dataProvider, liveProvider } from '@refinedev/supabase'
import { BrowserRouter, Route, Routes } from 'react-router'
import './App.css'
import authProvider from './authProvider'
import { supabaseClient } from './utility'

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <RefineKbarProvider>
        <Refine
          dataProvider={dataProvider(supabaseClient)}
          liveProvider={liveProvider(supabaseClient)}
          authProvider={authProvider}
          routerProvider={routerProvider}
          options={{
            syncWithLocation: true,
            warnWhenUnsavedChanges: true,
          }}
        >
          <Routes>
            <Route index element={<WelcomePage />} />
          </Routes>
          <RefineKbar />
          <UnsavedChangesNotifier />
          <DocumentTitleHandler />
        </Refine>
      </RefineKbarProvider>
    </BrowserRouter>
  )
}

export default App

</$CodeTabs>

Focus on the <Refine /> component, which comes with props passed to it. Notice the dataProvider prop. It uses a dataProvider() function with supabaseClient passed as argument to generate the data provider object. The authProvider object also uses supabaseClient in implementing its methods. You can look it up in src/authProvider.ts file.

Customize authProvider

If you examine the authProvider object you can notice that it has a login method that implements an OAuth and Email / Password strategy for authentication. This tutorial instead removes them and use Magic Links to allow users sign in with their email without using passwords.

Use supabaseClient auth's signInWithOtp method inside authProvider.login method:

login: async ({ email }) => {
  try {
    const { error } = await supabaseClient.auth.signInWithOtp({ email });

    if (!error) {
      alert("Check your email for the login link!");
      return {
        success: true,
      };
    };

    throw error;
  } catch (e: any) {
    alert(e.message);
    return {
      success: false,
      e,
    };
  }
},

Remove register, updatePassword, forgotPassword and getPermissions properties, which are optional type members and also not necessary for the app. The final authProvider object looks like this:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/authProvider.ts" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/authProvider.ts" />

Set up a login component

As the app uses the headless Refine core package that comes with no supported UI framework set up a plain React component to manage logins and sign ups.

Create and edit src/components/auth.tsx:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/components/auth.tsx" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/components/auth.tsx" />

The useLogin() Refine auth hook to grab the mutate: login method to use inside handleLogin() function and isLoading state for the form submission. The useLogin() hook conveniently offers access to authProvider.login method for authenticating the user with OTP.

Account page

After a user is signed in, allow them to edit their profile details and manage their account.

Create a new component for that in src/components/account.tsx.

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/components/account.tsx" lines={[[1, 3], [8, 43], [69, -1]]} meta="name=src/components/account.tsx" />

This uses three Refine hooks, namely the useGetIdentity(), useLogOut() and useForm() hooks.

useGetIdentity() is a auth hook that gets the identity of the authenticated user. It grabs the current user by invoking the authProvider.getIdentity method under the hood.

useLogOut() is also an auth hook. It calls the authProvider.logout method to end the session.

useForm(), in contrast, is a data hook that exposes a series of useful objects that serve the edit form. For example, grabbing the onFinish function to submit the form with the handleSubmit event handler. It also uses formLoading property to present state changes of the submitted form.

The useForm() hook is a higher-level hook built on top of Refine's useForm() core hook. It fully supports form state management, field validation and submission using React Hook Form. Behind the scenes, it invokes the dataProvider.getOne method to get the user profile data from the Supabase /profiles endpoint and also invokes dataProvider.update method when onFinish() is called.

Launch!

Now that you have all the components in place, define the routes for the pages in which they should be rendered.

Add the routes for /login with the <Auth /> component and the routes for index path with the <Account /> component. So, the final App.tsx:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/App.tsx" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/App.tsx" />

Test the App by running the server again:

npm run dev

And then open the browser to localhost:5173 and you should see the completed app.

Bonus: Profile photos

Every Supabase project is configured with Storage for managing large files like photos and videos.

Create an upload widget

Create an avatar for the user so that they can upload a profile photo. Add a new component:

Create and edit src/components/avatar.tsx:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/components/avatar.tsx" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/components/avatar.tsx" />

Add the new widget

And then add the widget to the Account page at src/components/account.tsx:

<$CodeSample path="/user-management/refine-user-management/src/components/account.tsx" lines={[[1, -1]]} meta="name=src/components/account.tsx" />

At this stage, you have a fully functional application!