Account management

Account management flows often need mailbox verification too. A common example is changing the email address on an existing account: create a challenge for the new mailbox, verify the code, then update the account.

Tip

Keep authenticated account-management challenges separate from unauthenticated signup/login challenges. That usually means a separate cookie key or server-side session record.

Generate and email the challenge

backend/email-change.ts

import { Passlock, isChallengeRateLimitedError } from "@passlock/server";

const passlock = new Passlock({ ... });

const { userId } = await getLoggedInUser();

const email = "..."; // new email address

const result = await passlock.createMailboxChallenge({
  email,
  userId,
  purpose: "email-change",
  // any pending "email-change" challenges for this userId will be nuked
  invalidateOthers: true,
});

if (result.success) {
  const { challengeId, secret, message } = result.value.challenge;

  // save this in the user's session or a secure HTTP only cookie
  await savePendingChallenge({
    purpose: "email-change",
    challengeId,
    secret,
  });

  await emailCodeToUser({ email, message });
} else if (isChallengeRateLimitedError(result.error)) {
  return showRateLimit(result.error.retryAfterSeconds);
} else {
  throw new Error(result.error.message);
}

Verify the code and create a session

backend/email-change.ts

import { Passlock } from "@passlock/server";

const passlock = new Passlock({... });

const { userId, email: currentEmail } = await getLoggedInUser();

// fetch from the user's session or secure cookie
const pendingChallenge = await loadPendingChallenge({ purpose: "email-change" });

const result = await passlock.verifyMailboxChallenge({
  challengeId: pendingChallenge.challengeId,
  secret: pendingChallenge.secret,
  code: form.code, // the user submitted this
});

if (result.success) {
  const email = result.challenge.email;

  // email currentEmail notifying user of the change
  await sendEmailUpdatedMessage(currentEmail);

  // update the account email
  await updateUserEmail(userId, email);
} else {
  return throw new Error(result.error.message);
}