/cognito-demo-service

Example Express based REST API in Node.js for my medium.com article on using the AWS Cognito provided JWT tokens in a backend service. Demonstrates downloading of the Cognito JWKS certificates and use of a JWT decoder to verify the claims in a JWT token, all wrapped up in a reusable Express middleware function.

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

This application was created using the create express component, and demonstrates how to verify the JWT authentication tokens used by AWS Cognito in an express based node.js service. See my article AWS Cognito example using React UI and Node.js REST APIs — part 3 (JWT secured REST APIs) for more information.

Running the application

  1. Modify src/config/app-config.json to match your user pool and application URLs. When running locally with the UI, the signoutUri will property need to be http://localhost:3000/ and the callbackUri property will need to be http://localhost:3000/callback.
  2. Run npm install to setup and install the dependencies.
  3. Run DEBUG=cognito-demo-service:* npm start to start the service.
  4. The service will start listening at http:localhost:3010.
  5. Using curl call the GET /users REST API:
curl -X GET http://localhost:3010/users -H 'Authorization: Bearer <your_JWT_token>'

and if successful you should see the following type of response:

Successfully verified JWT token. Extracted information: {"sub":"1f0be62f-ffcd-49ca-b5a4-18f0bf62e0e6","token_use":"access","scope":["openid","profile","https://cognito-demo-api.arronharden.com/hello-world.all","email"],"username":"arron"}

React UI client

The source for an example React UI application which invokes this REST API is contained in the repo at https://github.com/arronharden/cognito-demo-ui. A running instance of this React application is hosted at https://cognito-demo.arronharden.com.

Example

A running instance of this REST API is hosted at https://cognito-demo-api.arronharden.com.

About me

I'm a cloud/SaaS architect and lead full stack engineer, living in Milton Keynes (UK). More information about me can be found on my profile at https://arronharden.com.