Clerk

How to use Clerk

Clerk is a user management platform that provides a simple way to add authentication and authorization capabilities to your web application. Follow the steps below to use Clerk in your project:

1. Create an account: Sign up for a Clerk account at their website: https://www.clerk.dev/. On the dashboard, create a new project, and you'll be provided with a unique API key.

2. Install Clerk SDK: Clerk has a JavaScript SDK that you can use to interact with its API. You can install it via npm or include it as a script tag. Here's an example of including it with a script tag:

   <script src="https://js.clerk.dev/v2/"></script>
   

3. Configure Clerk: Once you have added the SDK, you need to configure it with your API key. To do this, call

   Clerk.load
   function passing your API key like:

   Clerk.load("YOUR_API_KEY");
   

4. Use Clerk components: Clerk has several UI components that you can use in your application. These components help you build a login/signup form, reset password flow, and more. Import the component's module from clerk-react along with the SDK in your React project:

   import * as Clerk from "@clerk/clerk-react";
   import { ClerkProvider } from "@clerk/clerk-react";
   

   Wrap your top-level component inside the

   ClerkProvider
   , which provides the SDK instance to all of the Clerk components in your app:

   <ClerkProvider frontendApi={Clerk}>
     <App />
   </ClerkProvider>
   

5. Secure your routes: Clerk provides a

   useUser
   hook that you can use to control access to certain parts of your application. Redirect a user to the login page if they aren't authenticated:

   import { useUser } from "@clerk/clerk-react";
   
   function PrivateRoute({ children, ...rest }) {
     const { user } = useUser();
   
     return (
       <Route
         {...rest}
         render={({ location }) =>
           user ? (
             children
           ) : (
             <Redirect
               to={{
                 pathname: "/login",
                 state: { from: location }
               }}
             />
           )
         }
       />
     );
   }
   

   Use this

   PrivateRoute
   component to wrap any routes that require authentication in your application.

That's it! With these few steps, you can add user authentication and authorization capabilities to your web application using Clerk.