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Protect organization resources

In addition to Protect your API which takes API as the resource, organization can also be resource, and protect your organization resource in the same way. In this article, We'll focus on how to change to protect your organization resource in similar way.

Step 1: Get organization IDs from OIDC flow​

Logto extends the standard OpenID Connect protocol to allow your app to get the organization info from the user. There are two ways to do that:

  • If you are using a Logto SDK with Organizations support, you can add the urn:logto:scope:organizations scope to scopes parameter of the configuration object. Usually the SDK will have an enum for this scope, e.g. UserScope.Organizations in Logto JS SDKs.
import { LogtoClient, UserScope } from '@logto/browser'; // or @logto/node, @logto/client

const logto = new LogtoClient({
// ...
scopes: [UserScope.Organizations],
});
  • For other cases, you need to add the urn:logto:scope:organizations scope to the scope parameter of the SDK config (or auth request).

Once the user finishes the authentication flow, you can get the organization info from the idToken:

// Use JavaScript as an example
const idToken = await logto.getIdTokenClaims();

console.log(idToken.organizations); // A string array of organization IDs

The organizations field (claim) will also be included in response from the UserInfo endpoint.

Optional: Get organization roles​

If you haven’t set up organization roles yet, refer to this section.

To get all organization roles of the current user:

  • If you are using a Logto SDK with Organizations support, you can add the urn:logto:scope:organization_roles scope to scopes parameter of the configuration object. Usually the SDK will have an enum for this scope, e.g. UserScope.OrganizationRoles in Logto JS SDKs.
  • For other cases, you need to add the urn:logto:scope:organization_roles scope to the scope parameter of the SDK config (or auth request).

Then you can get the organization roles from the idToken:

// Use JavaScript as an example
const idToken = await logto.getIdTokenClaims();

console.log(idToken.organization_roles); // A string array of organization roles

Each string in the array is in the format of organization_id:role_id, e.g. org_123:admin means the user has the admin role in the organization with ID org_123.

The organization_roles field (claim) will also be included in response from the UserInfo endpoint.

Step 2. Fetch organization token​

To perform actions in the context of an organization, the user needs to be granted an access token for that organization (organization token). The organization token is a JWT token that contains the organization ID and the user's permissions (scopes) in the organization.

Add parameters to the authentication request​

  • If you are using a Logto SDK with Organizations support, you can add the urn:logto:scope:organizations scope to scopes parameter of the configuration object, the same way as Get organization IDs of the current user.
    • Logto SDK with Organizations support will automatically handle the rest of the configuration.
  • For other cases, you need to add the offline_access and urn:logto:scope:organizations scopes to the scope parameter and the urn:logto:resource:organizations resource to the resource parameter of the SDK config (or auth request).
    • Note: offline_access is required to get the refresh_token that can be used to fetch organization tokens.
// Only for other cases. For Logto SDKs, see above.
const config = {
// ...
scope: 'openid offline_access urn:logto:scope:organizations',
resource: 'urn:logto:resource:organizations',
};
note:

The urn:logto:resource:organizations resource is a special resource that represents the organization template.

Fetch the organization token​

Logto extends the standard refresh_token grant type to allow your app to fetch organization tokens.

  • If you are using a Logto SDK with Organizations support, you can call the getOrganizationToken() method (or getOrganizationTokenClaims() method) of the SDK.
  • For other cases, you need to call the token endpoint with the following parameters:
    • grant_type: refresh_token.
    • client_id: The app ID the user used to authenticate.
    • refresh_token: The refresh_token you got from the authentication flow.
    • organization_id: The ID of the organization you want to get the token for.
    • scope (optional): The scopes you want to grant to the user in the organization. If not specified, the authorization server will try to grant the same scopes as the authentication flow.
const token = await logto.getOrganizationToken('<organization-id>');

The response will be in the same format as the standard token endpoint, and the access_token is the organization token in JWT format.

Besides regular claims of an access token, the organization token also contains the following claims:

  • aud: The audience of the organization token is urn:logto:organization:{organization_id}.
  • scope: The scopes granted to the user in the organization with space as delimiter.

Example​

A good example can beat a thousand words. Assume our organization template has the following setup:

  • Permissions: read:logs, write:logs, read:users, write:users.
  • Roles: admin, member.
    • The admin role has all permissions.
    • The member role has read:logs and read:users permissions.

And the user has the following setup:

  • Organization IDs: org_1, org_2.
  • Organization roles: org_1:admin, org_2:member.

In the Logto SDK config (or auth request), we set up other things properly, and added the following scopes:

  • urn:logto:scope:organizations
  • openid
  • offline_access
  • read:logs
  • write:logs

Now, when the user finishes the authentication flow, we can get the organization IDs from the idToken:

// Use JavaScript as an example
const idToken = await logto.getIdTokenClaims();

console.log(idToken.organizations); // ['org_1', 'org_2']

If we want to get the organization tokens:

// Use JavaScript as an example
const org1Token = await logto.getOrganizationTokenClaims('org_1');
const org2Token = await logto.getOrganizationTokenClaims('org_2');

console.log(org1Token.aud); // 'urn:logto:organization:org_1'
console.log(org1Token.scope); // 'read:logs write:logs'
console.log(org2Token.aud); // 'urn:logto:organization:org_2'
console.log(org2Token.scope); // 'read:logs'

const org3Token = await logto.getOrganizationTokenClaims('org_3'); // Error: User is not a member of the organization

Explanation:

  • For org_1, the user has the admin role, so the organization token should have all available permissions (scopes).
  • For org_2, the user has the member role, so the organization token should have read:logs and read:users permissions (scopes).

Since we only requested read:logs and write:logs scopes in the authentication flow, the organization tokens have been "downscoped" accordingly, resulting in the intersection of the requested scopes and the available scopes.

Fetch organization token for a machine-to-machine application​

Similar to fetching organization tokens for users, you can also fetch organization tokens for machine-to-machine applications. The only difference is that you need to use the client_credentials grant type instead of the refresh_token grant type.

To learn more about machine-to-machine applications, see Machine-to-machine: Auth with Logto.

Step 3. Verify organization tokens​

Once the app gets an organization token, it can use the token in the same way as a regular access token, e.g. call the APIs with the token in the Authorization header in the format of Bearer {token}.

In your API, the way you verify the organization token is quite similar to Protect your API. Main differences:

  • Unlike access tokens for API resources, a user CANNOT get an organization token if the user is not a member of the organization.
  • The audience of the organization token is urn:logto:organization:{organization_id}.
  • For certain permissions (scopes), you need to check the scope claim of the organization token by splitting the string with space as delimiter.