Quickstart

Install

npm i better-iam

The umbrella package installs every @better-iam/* package except the Nuxt module, and exposes them as subpaths such as better-iam/adapter-sqlite, better-iam/client, and better-iam/next. Protocol packages (OAuth, SAML, SCIM) load only when you import their subpaths. See Installation to install individual packages instead.

Create a secret

Better IAM derives its signing and encryption keys from one deployment secret of at least 32 characters. Keep it stable across restarts and processes, and store it like a database password.

node -e "console.log(require('node:crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64url'))"

BETTER_IAM_SECRET=paste-the-generated-value-here
BETTER_IAM_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000

Better IAM does not load .env files itself. Make these variables available to every process that loads the configuration (your server, your scripts, and the CLI), for example with export in your shell or your framework's .env support. Rotating the secret later is supported with previousSecrets; see Secrets.

Configure the instance

Put the options in a module whose default export is the configuration. Your application and the better-iam CLI both load it, so migrations and jobs always see the same settings.

import { sqliteAdapter } from 'better-iam/adapter-sqlite';

export default {
  database: sqliteAdapter({ filename: './iam.db' }),
  secret: process.env.BETTER_IAM_SECRET,
  baseURL: process.env.BETTER_IAM_BASE_URL,
  authentication: {
    // Development only: print each invitation, link, and code, including its token. In production,
    // send the message with your mail provider, deduplicate retries by message.id, and never log payloads.
    sendEmail: async (message) => {
      console.log(message.template, message.to, message.payload);
    },
  },
  permissions: {
    resourceTypes: {
      document: {
        actions: ['documents:read', 'documents:write'],
        attributes: { ownerId: 'string' },
      },
    },
  },
  // Authorization calls this to learn which tenant owns one of your documents. Replace findDocument
  // with a lookup in your own database; never trust a tenant ID taken from the request.
  resolveResource: async ({ type, id }) => {
    const document = await findDocument(id);
    return { type, id, tenantId: document.tenantId, attributes: { ownerId: document.ownerId } };
  },
};

• database chooses the storage adapter, here a SQLite file.
• secret and baseURL come from the environment you set in the previous step.
• authentication.sendEmail delivers invitations, verification links, and codes. Creating an organization fails with DELIVERY_REQUIRED without it.
• permissions.resourceTypes declares the kinds of things your product protects and the actions that apply to them, so policies and roles that use these names are validated when they are saved.
• resolveResource loads the owner and attributes of your own records at decision time. document is an application-owned type (your database holds documents, not Better IAM), so checks on it fail with RESOURCE_RESOLVER_REQUIRED without a resolver. See resources and catalog.

Then create the instance your code imports:

import { betterIam } from 'better-iam';
import config from './better-iam.config.mjs';

export const iam = betterIam(config);

Migrate and bootstrap

migrate creates the schema. bootstrap creates the platform root tenant and its first administrator exactly once. It reads the administrator's credentials from the environment, because secrets are never accepted as command-line arguments.

npx better-iam migrate --config better-iam.config.mjs

export BETTER_IAM_ROOT_EMAIL=root@example.com
export BETTER_IAM_ROOT_NAME="Platform administrator"
export BETTER_IAM_ROOT_PASSWORD='a long root password' # at least 12 characters
npx better-iam bootstrap --config better-iam.config.mjs

bootstrap prints what it created as JSON:

{
  "tenant": { "id": "3f2c9a4e-…", "name": "Platform", "type": "root", "status": "active", … },
  "identity": { "id": "usr_…", "email": "root@example.com", "rootAdmin": true, … },
  "mfaEnrollmentRequired": true
}

Copy tenant.id: it is the root tenant's ID, which the next steps call rootTenantId. Every sign-in names a tenant, because the same email address can belong to separate identities in different tenants.

Serve the HTTP API

The instance exposes a Web-standard handler and a Node nodeHandler. Mount either one; the typed browser client and every framework integration talk to it under /api/iam.

import { createServer } from 'node:http';
import { iam } from './iam';

createServer(iam.nodeHandler).listen(3000);

Emails are queued in the database with the change that caused them, and reach sendEmail only when iam.auth.dispatchOutbox() runs. A deployment runs it on a schedule (see scheduled jobs); the setup script below calls it directly.

Using a framework? Skip this step and follow the Next.js, Nuxt, SvelteKit, NestJS, or Express, Hono, and Fastify guide.

Sign in as the root administrator

Root authority always requires an MFA-verified session, so the root administrator can do nothing until it enrolls an authenticator. Its first sign-in therefore returns a challenge with enrollmentRequired: true instead of a session. The rest of this walkthrough is one setup script that calls iam.api directly, the way your backend and admin tooling do; it starts by completing that enrollment.

import { createInterface } from 'node:readline/promises';
import { iam } from './iam';

const terminal = createInterface({ input: process.stdin, output: process.stdout });
const rootTenantId = '3f2c9a4e-…'; // tenant.id from the bootstrap output

// First factor: the password. The result is an MFA challenge, not a session.
const signIn = await iam.api.auth.signIn({
  tenantId: rootTenantId,
  email: process.env.BETTER_IAM_ROOT_EMAIL!,
  password: process.env.BETTER_IAM_ROOT_PASSWORD!,
});
if (!('mfaRequired' in signIn)) throw new Error('Expected an MFA challenge');
const challenge = { tenantId: rootTenantId, challenge: signIn.challenge };

// Second factor: add the secret to your authenticator app, then confirm the code it shows.
const { secret } = await iam.api.auth.beginMfa(challenge);
console.log('Authenticator key:', secret);
const code = await terminal.question('Six-digit code: ');
const { token: rootSessionToken, recoveryCodes } = await iam.api.auth.confirmMfa({
  credential: challenge,
  code,
});
console.log('Recovery codes (store them safely):', recoveryCodes);

• auth.signIn checks the password and returns either a session or, as here, an MFA challenge that is valid for five minutes. Enter the code before it expires.
• auth.beginMfa creates the authenticator secret. It also returns uri, an otpauth:// link you can show as a QR code instead.
• auth.confirmMfa checks the first code, enables the factor, returns ten single-use recovery codes, and issues an MFA-verified session. Its token is the root's bearer token for the next steps.

If the root administrator ever loses both the authenticator and the recovery codes, npx better-iam recover-root reads the same environment variables and creates a replacement root administrator. Give it an email address the root tenant does not use yet.

Create an organization

Tenants form a tree under the root, and each customer organization is a tenant with its own people and roles. The root creates the organization and invites its owner by email. tenants.create needs recent authentication (a session established within the last five minutes), which the session you just received has.

// A credential says who is calling: { token }, or { headers } from an incoming request.
const root = { token: rootSessionToken };

const { tenant } = await iam.api.tenants.create(root, {
  parentId: rootTenantId,
  type: 'organization',
  name: 'Acme',
  slug: 'acme', // a sign-in alias: tenants.lookup({ slug: 'acme' }) finds the tenant
  ownerEmail: 'owner@acme.test',
});

// Hand the queued owner-invitation email to sendEmail, which prints it with its token.
await iam.auth.dispatchOutbox();
const invitationToken = await terminal.question('Token from the owner-invitation: ');

// The owner redeems the invitation, normally on your invitation page. Acceptance creates their
// identity in Acme, activates the tenant, and signs them in.
const accepted = await iam.api.tenants.acceptInvitation({
  tenantId: tenant.id,
  token: invitationToken,
  name: 'Olivia Owner',
  password: 'another long password',
});
if ('mfaRequired' in accepted) throw new Error('Acme requires MFA: complete it as the root did');
const owner = { token: accepted.token };

The new tenant starts pending and becomes active when the owner accepts. tenants.acceptInvitation is public (it needs no credential) because the owner has no account yet. It returns the owner's identity with a session, or with an MFA challenge when the organization requires a second factor.

Grant access and check it

The owner shapes their organization: a custom role built from catalog permissions, and an invitation that binds it to a new member.

const editor = await iam.api.roles.create(owner, {
  tenantId: tenant.id,
  name: 'Editor',
  permissions: ['documents:read', 'documents:write'],
});
await iam.api.identities.invite(owner, {
  tenantId: tenant.id,
  email: 'alice@acme.test',
  roleIds: [editor.id],
});
await iam.auth.dispatchOutbox(); // prints Alice's member-invitation
terminal.close();

Run the script once, in the shell where you exported the variables, with a TypeScript runner such as npx tsx setup.ts. It expects a freshly bootstrapped database: on a second run the root already has an authenticator (answer the challenge with auth.verifyMfa instead of enrolling again), and the acme alias is taken (SLUG_TAKEN).

Alice redeems her member-invitation token with the public identities.acceptInvitation, typically from your invitation page through the browser client. That creates her identity, binds the Editor role, and signs her in; through the HTTP handler her session is kept in a cookie that her later requests carry.

Your application then enforces decisions in its own routes with iam.require, which throws when the caller may not act, or iam.authorize, which returns the decision for you to inspect:

import { iam } from '../iam';

export async function updateDocument(request: Request, document: { id: string; tenantId: string }) {
  await iam.require({
    headers: request.headers, // the session cookie or bearer token of the caller
    tenantId: document.tenantId,
    action: 'documents:write',
    resource: { type: 'document', id: document.id },
  });
  // ...only reached when the caller may write this document
}

A denied check throws an IamError with code ACCESS_DENIED (403), and a missing or lapsed credential fails with UNAUTHENTICATED (401); the HTTP handler turns both into JSON error responses. See Error codes.