go-loose/docs/client-login.md

Client application login

Go Loose can host login for browser-facing Go applications. Your application never handles the user's IdP password. It redirects the browser to Go Loose, receives a short-lived one-time authorization code, exchanges that code from its backend using a client secret, and stores the returned opaque session in an HTTP-only cookie.

1. Configure the application in Go Loose

1. Open Applications and choose Configure client login.
2. Add the exact callback URL, for example https://nmbs.guess.local/auth/callback.
3. Save and copy the client secret. It is shown once.
4. Open Users, invite the user by the email returned by the IdP, and choose Manage to grant access to the application.

The invitation requires an initial password. Tenant login hosts accept database credentials only; SSO is reserved for system administration on the bare authentication domain.

Saving client configuration rotates the secret. Callback URLs require HTTPS, except localhost and 127.0.0.1 while Go Loose development login is enabled.

2. Add the Go client

go get github.com/danyel/go-loose/client

Configure the hosted login and register its handlers:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net/http"
	"os"
	"time"

	goloose "github.com/danyel/go-loose/client"
)

func main() {
	auth, err := goloose.NewBrowserAuth(goloose.BrowserAuthConfig{
		BaseURL:        "https://nmbs.auth.example.com",
		ClientID:       os.Getenv("GO_LOOSE_CLIENT_ID"),
		ClientSecret:   os.Getenv("GO_LOOSE_CLIENT_SECRET"),
		RedirectURL:    "https://nmbs.guess.local/auth/callback",
		AfterLoginURL:  "/app",
		AfterLogoutURL: "/",
		LoginPath:      "/login",
		CookieSecure:   true,
		HTTPClient:     &http.Client{Timeout: 3 * time.Second},
	})
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}

	mux := http.NewServeMux()
	mux.HandleFunc("GET /login", auth.LoginHandler)
	mux.HandleFunc("GET /auth/callback", auth.CallbackHandler)
	mux.HandleFunc("POST /logout", auth.LogoutHandler)

	protected := auth.Middleware(http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
		user, ok := goloose.UserFromContext(r.Context())
		if !ok {
			http.Error(w, "user missing", http.StatusInternalServerError)
			return
		}
		fmt.Fprintf(w, "Hello %s from tenant %s", user.DisplayName, user.TenantSlug)
	}))
	mux.Handle("GET /app", protected)
	mux.Handle("GET /api/profile", protected)

	log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":8090", mux))
}

Keep GO_LOOSE_CLIENT_SECRET in a secret manager, never source control. In local development, configure an exact callback such as http://localhost:8090/auth/callback and set CookieSecure: false.

Tenant login hostname

Each tenant has its own login origin:

https://<tenant-slug>.<GO_LOOSE_AUTH_DOMAIN>

For tenant nmbs with GO_LOOSE_AUTH_DOMAIN=auth.dev, configure the Go client with:

BaseURL: "http://nmbs.auth.dev:18080"

For local development, add the tenant hostname to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 nmbs.auth.dev

Production should configure wildcard DNS and TLS for *.auth.example.com, route those hosts to Go Loose, and use:

GO_LOOSE_BASE_URL=https://auth.example.com
GO_LOOSE_AUTH_DOMAIN=auth.example.com
GO_LOOSE_OIDC_REDIRECT_URL=https://auth.example.com/auth/callback

The client package initially redirects to /connect/authorize. Go Loose verifies the registered client and exact callback, canonicalizes the browser onto the tenant hostname, and renders <Tenant name> login for the requested application.

3. Browser flow

Browser → GET /login on client application
        → GET /connect/authorize on Go Loose
        → separate Go Loose client login
        → organization OIDC provider
        → Go Loose validates user + application grant
        → client /auth/callback?code=...&state=...
Client  → POST /connect/token with Authorization: Basic <client-id:secret>
        ← opaque 12-hour session token
Browser ← HTTP-only SameSite session cookie on client application
Request → client middleware → GET /connect/userinfo → protected handler
                                      Authorization: Bearer <opaque-session>

The authorization code expires after two minutes and can be used once. Redirect URIs must match exactly. Removing a user's application grant immediately makes /connect/userinfo reject existing sessions. Logout revokes the central session and clears the local cookie.

Role and profile picture

Both /connect/token and /connect/userinfo return the caller's role, permissions, and absolute avatar_url, resolved against the tenant that owns the application:

{
  "id": "9f0f...",
  "email": "ada@example.com",
  "display_name": "Ada Lovelace",
  "avatar_url": "https://loose.example.com/api/v1/avatars/kZ3...",
  "tenant_id": "2b41...",
  "tenant_slug": "nmbs",
  "application_id": "7c02...",
  "application": "guess",
  "role": "developer",
  "permissions": [
    "console.read",
    "users.read",
    "applications.manage",
    "keys.manage",
    "contracts.manage",
    "users.manage",
    "profile.edit"
  ]
}

There is no can object on the wire. avatar_url is public by design, so it can be embedded directly with a plain image tag; it is an empty string when the user has not uploaded a picture.

Read permissions rather than testing role by name, because a tenant may define its own roles. The client package exposes the same check as a method:

if user.Can("contracts.manage") {
	// the role behind this session grants it
}

A user with no membership in the application's tenant still authenticates, but falls back to the built-in user role, whose only permission is profile.edit. See roles, permissions, and profiles.

Security and availability

• Use TLS for both Go Loose and the client application.
• Keep client secrets server-side and rotate them after suspected disclosure.
• Do not replace the middleware's fail-closed behavior with an allow-on-error fallback.
• Apply CSRF protection to state-changing routes in the client application; the package handles login state, not your application forms.
• The middleware checks Go Loose on every request for immediate revocation. Deploy Go Loose highly available and use a bounded HTTP timeout.
• Signing out in Go Loose revokes every hosted-login session the user holds here, so the client applications stop accepting their tokens on the next request. See Signing out across the family.
• API-key authentication and browser-user authentication are independent. Use client.Middleware for service/API keys and BrowserAuth.Middleware for logged-in users.

Signing out across the family

Applications in this family share one identity, so signing out has to mean more than clearing one cookie. POST /auth/logout does three things, in this order:

1. Revokes every hosted-login session the user holds. Go Loose issues the bearer tokens these applications authenticate with, so this is what actually signs them out: their tokens stop resolving immediately, without the application being told or having to ask. This step reads the session first, which is why it happens before the cookie is cleared.
2. Clears the local management cookies on the identity domain.
3. Sends the browser to the identity provider's logout endpoint, when the provider advertises one in its discovery document, so the single sign-on session ends too.

Two consequences worth designing around:

• A client application is signed out on its next request, not by being notified. Its own session cookie still exists; the bearer token inside it has been revoked. An application that only checks the session locally will appear signed in until its next call to Go Loose, at which point it should treat the rejection as a sign-out and return the browser to /login.
• Applications that authenticate against a different provider are not covered. The provider endpoint is read from the issuer Go Loose itself is configured with, so this covers the applications that sign in through Go Loose. One pointed at a separate identity provider needs its own end-session redirect.

A provider that does not advertise end_session_endpoint is not an error: step 3 is skipped and the user lands back on the sign-in page, having still been signed out locally and revoked. Go Loose sends client_id and post_logout_redirect_uri rather than an id_token_hint, because a hint would mean keeping a live credential in the browser cookie between login and logout.

Applications on the local platform

The local platform signs in two client applications, both with the wildcard identity domain auth.dev:

Application	Tenant	Callback URL
Go Guess	nmbs	https://nmbs.guess.dev/api/auth/callback
Go Guess	ypto	https://ypto.guess.dev/api/auth/callback
Go Tell	tell	https://tell.dev/api/auth/callback

Go Guess has one application per tenant because it serves one host per tenant. Go Tell has a single application: it is served from one host with no tenant routing, so one client covers every request.

Client secrets are shown once when an application is configured. The Compose stack reads them from a gitignored .env, and the Kubernetes releases receive them through their release secret. Go Loose hashes stored secrets, so a lost secret can only be replaced, never recovered.

Cluster clients cannot reach the workstation Traefik that serves auth.dev. Both releases therefore mount the platform CA and expect a reachable identity address, and a 502 on /api/auth/callback means the pod cannot reach Go Loose rather than that the client is misconfigured.

Troubleshooting 403

403 your account does not have access to this application means authentication succeeded but the user lacks an application grant. In Go Loose, open Users, select the user, choose Manage, and enable the target application. A missing or incorrect token header returns 401, not 403.