Architecture

Authlier is a Go library that your application compiles into its server. The root authlier package creates the configured authentication methods, connects them to storage, and exposes one http.Handler for the server to mount.

Authentication requests

The client sends a request to a route beneath BasePath. The Authlier handler validates the request and calls the manager for that authentication method. The manager verifies the credential or provider response and writes the required authentication records through the configured storage adapter.

Authlier creates a session only after every required authentication step has succeeded. In cookie mode, it stores the opaque token hash and sends the raw token to the browser in an HttpOnly cookie. In bearer mode, it returns a short-lived access token and a rotating refresh token to the web, mobile, CLI, or server client.

Application requests

Your application routes remain in your Go server. When one of those routes requires an authenticated account, call auth.ResolveSession(request). Authlier reads either the cookie or bearer access token, validates its durable session, and returns the stable subject ID.

Use that subject ID to load the profile, organization membership, roles, and permissions owned by your application. Those records do not become Authlier data.

Package boundaries

Each authentication method has a focused public package such as emailpassword, totp, passkey, googleoauth, oidc, or saml. The root package is the convenient composition layer used by most HTTP applications. The lower-level packages remain public for another transport or a deliberately different authentication workflow.

Official database implementations live under storage/postgres, storage/mysql, storage/mongodb, and storage/redis. They implement the same behavioral storage contracts, including the atomic operations required for single-use tokens, state consumption, session revocation, and credential updates.

See Lower-level packages before replacing the configured HTTP handler, or read the repository's ARCHITECTURE.md for the complete package map.