Mailbox verification

Use mailbox challenges during signup to verify ownership of an email address.

Generate and email the challenge

backed/signup.ts

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

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

// capture this during signup
const email = "...";
const firstName = "...";
const lastName = "...";

const result = await passlock.createMailboxChallenge({
  email,
  purpose: "signup",
  // invalidate other "signup" challenges for this email
  invalidateOthers: true,
  // we can store arbitrary data here if required
  metadata: {
    firstName,
    lastName
  }
});

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: "signup"
    challengeId,
    secret,
  });

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

Verify the submitted code

backend/signup.ts

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

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

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

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

if (result.success) {
  const { challenge } = result.value;

  const { email } = challenge;
  // use a real type guard /schema for this
  const { firstName, lastName } = challenge.metadata;

  await createUserAccount({
    email,
    firstName,
    lastName,
    emailVerified: true
  });

  // delete the cookie or session attributes
  await clearPendingChallenge({ purpose: "signup" });
} else {
  throw new Error(result.error.message);
}

If you also support backends that do not use the JS/TS server library, the same flow is available through the REST API mailbox challenge endpoints.