Clerk React SDK + Encore App Example

This is an example of how to do user authentication using Clerk together with an Encore app. Check out the Use Clerk with your app guide to learn more about this example.

Cloning the example

Prerequisite: Installing Encore

If this is the first time you're using Encore, you first need to install the CLI that runs the local development environment. Use the appropriate command for your system:

  • macOS: brew install encoredev/tap/encore
  • Linux: curl -L https://encore.dev/install.sh | bash
  • Windows: iwr https://encore.dev/install.ps1 | iex

When you have installed Encore, run to clone this example:

encore app create my-app --example=ts/clerk

Clerk Credentials

  1. Create a Clerk account if you haven't already. Then, in the Clerk dashboard, create a new application.

  2. Go to the API Keys page for your app. Copy the "Publishable Key" and one of the "Secret keys".

  3. In frontend/.env file, replace the values for VITE_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY with the value from your Clerk dashboard.

  4. The Secret key is sensitive and should not be hardcoded in your code/config. Instead, you should store that as an Encore secret.

From your terminal (inside your Encore app directory), run:

$ encore secret set --prod ClerkSecretKey
  1. Do the same for the development secret. The most secure way is to create another secret key (Clerk allows you to have multiple). Once you have a client secret for development, set it similarly to before:
$ encore secret set --dev ClerkSecretKey
  1. Go the Domains page for your app in the Clerk dashboard. There you will find the domain for your app. Replace the value for the DOMAIN variable in auth/config.ts with your domain.

Developing locally

Run your Encore backend:

encore run

In a different terminal window, run the React frontend using Vite:

cd frontend
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 in your browser to see the result.

Encore's Local Development Dashboard

While encore run is running, open http://localhost:9400/ to view Encore's local developer dashboard. Here you can see the request you just made and a view a trace of the response.

Generating a request client

Keep the contract between the backend and frontend in sync by regenerating the request client whenever you make a change to an Encore endpoint.

npm run gen # Locally running Encore backend

Deployment

Encore Backend

Self-hosting

See the self-hosting instructions for how to use encore build docker to create a Docker image and configure it.

Encore Cloud Platform

Deploy your application to a free staging environment in Encore's development cloud using git push encore:

git add -A .
git commit -m 'Commit message'
git push encore

You can also open your app in the Cloud Dashboard to integrate with GitHub, or connect your AWS/GCP account, enabling Encore to automatically handle cloud deployments for you.

Follow these steps to link your app to GitHub:

  1. Create a GitHub repo, commit and push the app.
  2. Open your app in the Cloud Dashboard.
  3. Go to Settings ➔ GitHub and click on Link app to GitHub to link your app to GitHub and select the repo you just created.
  4. To configure Encore to automatically trigger deploys when you push to a specific branch name, go to the Overview page for your intended environment. Click on Settings and then in the section Branch Push configure the Branch name and hit Save.
  5. Commit and push a change to GitHub to trigger a deploy.

Learn more in the docs

React frontend

Vercel

The frontend can be deployed to Vercel. Follow these steps:

  1. Create a repo and push the project to GitHub.
  2. Create a new project on Vercel and point it to your GitHup repo.
  3. Select frontend as the root directory for the Vercel project.

Once you have your frontend deployed:

  • Update the AUTHORIZED_PARTIES array in auth/config.ts to include the deployed Vercel URL.
  • Set the allow_origins_with_credentials in the encore.app (see below) file to the deployed Vercel URL.

CORS configuration

If you are running into CORS issues when calling your Encore API from your frontend then you may need to specify which origins are allowed to access your API (via browsers). You do this by specifying the global_cors key in the encore.app file, which has the following structure:

global_cors: {
  // allow_origins_without_credentials specifies the allowed origins for requests
  // that don't include credentials. If nil it defaults to allowing all domains
  // (equivalent to ["*"]).
  "allow_origins_without_credentials": [
    "<ORIGIN-GOES-HERE>"
  ],
        
  // allow_origins_with_credentials specifies the allowed origins for requests
  // that include credentials. If a request is made from an Origin in this list
  // Encore responds with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: <Origin>.
  //
  // The URLs in this list may include wildcards (e.g. "https://*.example.com"
  // or "https://*-myapp.example.com").
  "allow_origins_with_credentials": [
    "<DOMAIN-GOES-HERE>"
  ]
}

More information on CORS configuration can be found here: https://encore.dev/docs/ts/develop/cors