How do I find the id of the current user that is “logged in” with a jwt? I am trying to make a GET request and filter by specific id

Question

This the endpoint in my api that I am trying to access

router.get('/:id', [jsonParser, jwtAuth], (req, res) => {
return Teams.find().sort({creator: req.params.id})
    .then(teams => res.status(200).json(teams))
    .catch(err => res.status(500).json({message: 'Internal server error'}));
});

The fetch will probably look something like this?

function viewProfile() {
const base = '/api/teams/';
const id = idFromJwt;
const url = base + id;

return fetch(url)
.then(res => res.json())
.then(response => {
//takes response and modifies DOM
    populateProfile(response);
})
.catch(err => console.log(err));
}

Answer 1

First of all, assuming you're using ExpressJS I do suggest leveraging express-jwt middleware to handle requests authentication and issuing new Tokens.

What you need to bear in mind is that, you need to include the userId when you authenticate the user in the JWT payload in order to be able to retrieve it from the payload afterwards.

When user is authenticated, you have to store the token in the state of your application or in the localStorage or sessionStorage .

In case you want to decode the token on the front-end side and then send it to the API, you can use a simple module called jwt-decode to achieve that:

const jwtDecode = require("jwt-decode");
const token = window.localStorage.getItem("token"); // eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkwIiwibmFtZSI6IkpvaG4gRG9lIiwiaWQiOiIxMjM0NTY3ODkiLCJpYXQiOjE1MTYyMzkwMjJ9.gHqSxzWpdOUL1nRAqUJg2CtjsEZZi8FLikD41i639zY
const tokenPayload = jwtDecode(token).id; // "123456789"

Please bear in mind that in case you decided to use express-jwt you need to also send the token in the headers of the request as authorization to authenticate. Hope it helps. :)