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payloadcms/docs/authentication/jwt.mdx
Paul ef4874b9a0 feat: ecommerce plugin and template (#8297)
This PR adds an ecommerce plugin package with both a Payload plugin and
React UI utilities for the frontend. It also adds a new ecommerce
template and new ecommerce test suite.

It also makes a change to the `cpa` package to accept a `--version` flag
to install a specific version of Payload defaulting to the latest.
2025-09-29 20:05:16 -04:00

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---
title: JWT Strategy
label: JWT Strategy
order: 40
desc: Enable JSON Web Token based authentication to interface with Payload.
keywords: authentication, config, configuration, documentation, Content Management System, cms, headless, javascript, node, react, nextjs
---
Payload offers the ability to [Authenticate](./overview) via JSON Web Tokens (JWT). These can be read from the responses of `login`, `logout`, `refresh`, and `me` auth operations.
<Banner type="success">
**Tip:** You can access the logged-in user from within [Access
Control](../access-control/overview) and [Hooks](../hooks/overview) through
the `req.user` argument. [More details](./token-data).
</Banner>
### Identifying Users Via The Authorization Header
In addition to authenticating via an HTTP-only cookie, you can also identify users via the `Authorization` header on an HTTP request.
Example:
```ts
const user = await fetch('http://localhost:3000/api/users/login', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({
email: 'dev@payloadcms.com',
password: 'password',
}),
}).then((req) => await req.json())
const request = await fetch('http://localhost:3000', {
headers: {
Authorization: `JWT ${user.token}`,
},
})
```
### Omitting The Token
In some cases you may want to prevent the token from being returned from the auth operations. You can do that by setting `removeTokenFromResponses` to `true` like so:
```ts
import type { CollectionConfig } from 'payload'
export const UsersWithoutJWTs: CollectionConfig = {
slug: 'users-without-jwts',
auth: {
removeTokenFromResponses: true, // highlight-line
},
}
```
## External JWT Validation
When validating Payload-generated JWT tokens in external services, use the processed secret rather than your original secret key:
```ts
import crypto from 'node:crypto'
const secret = crypto
.createHash('sha256')
.update(process.env.PAYLOAD_SECRET)
.digest('hex')
.slice(0, 32)
```
<Banner type="info">
**Note:** Payload processes your secret using SHA-256 hash and takes the first
32 characters. This processed value is what's used for JWT operations, not
your original secret.
</Banner>