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Building your own API with Rails

Stateless Session

Explore the concept of stateless sessions in Rails APIs, understanding how to authenticate users securely without storing session state on the server. Learn the flow of using authentication tokens for client-server communication and how to handle user data efficiently in your Rails application.

We'll cover the following...

Before we go any further, it must be clarified that an API does not handle stateful sessions.

An API should be stateless, which means it provides a response after your request and then requires no further attention. This means no previous or future state is needed for the system to work.

These steps define the flow for authenticating the user through an API:

  1. The client requests a sessions resource with the corresponding credentials (usually email and password).
  2. The server returns the user resource along with its corresponding authentication token.
  3. The client has to send that authentication token for every page that requires authentication.

Of course this is not the only three-step method to follow. Even on step 2, we have the option to respond with the entire user or just the authentication token. The choice depends on personal preference, but we will return the entire user during this course. That allows us to map it right away on the client and save another possible request from being placed.