What is Two-Auth?

Two-Auth simplifies the process of implementing two-factor SMS authentication for your application. Two-Auth provides a simplified wrapper for Twilio’s verify API 2.0.

Two-Auth comes out of the box with one constructor function and three primary methods to create your registered user, send your user a verification code, and verify your user's code.

Installation

In your terminal, type:

$ npm install --save two-auth 

If you have not already, make sure to sign up for a Twilio account to receive your API credentials. You can sign up for Twilio here: https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio.

Initialization

In your application's backend, likely in an Express middleware controller (or wherever you manage authentication), require 'two-auth.' Then invoke the twoAuth function with your API credentials: your Twilio Account SID and your Twilio Auth Token.

const twoAuth = require('two-auth');
const client = twoAuth(*ACC_SID*, *AUTH_TOKEN*);

Optionally: you may pass a third parameter options object with the following syntax:

const twoAuth = require('two-auth');
const options = { 
    appName: "*YOUR_APP_NAME*",
    isPostgres: boolean,
    connectionURI: "*MONGO_URI or POSTGRES_URI*",
}
const client = twoAuth(*ACC_SID*, *AUTH_TOKEN*, options);

Based on your options object, your users will be sent sms with your appName. We currently support Mongo and Postgres databases.

If isPostgres is set to false we store your SID, registered user IDs and phone numbers inside a collection on your passed in Mongo database under the name two auth users.

If isPostgres is set to true we store your SID, registered user IDs and phone numbers inside a table on your passed in Postgres database under the name twoauthusers.

The initialization function will return an instance of a Two-Auth client. That client will have the create, send, and verify methods.

Two-Auth Methods

Note: each of these methods are fully asynchronous and should occur at different points in your express middleware controller pattern. The methods each return a promise.

create()

Provide two-auth with a user ID and a phone number associated with that user.

client.create(*USER_ID*, *PHONE_NUMBER*);

Warning: Two-Auth currently only supports US phone numbers. They must be formatted as a string to match +1XXXXXXXXXX

create registers a new verification service with Twilio, which will allow your application to later send and verify codes to and from that phone number and user.

send()

Once your user reaches the point in your app's login where you would like them to input the sms code:

client.send(*USER_ID*);

Make sure that the user ID or username you pass as an argument is the same as the user ID you passed to client.create()

send then routes through Twilio's API and sends an SMS containing the six-digit verification code to the phone number you associated with the user ID when you registered your user when you invoked create.

verify()

Once your user inputs their six digit code, pass it into the verification method:

client.verify(*USER_ID*, *SIX_DIGIT_CODE*)

Make sure that the code you pass is a string! NOT a number.

verify will properly identify and return true if the code is valid, false if the code is invalid.

Authors

Sierra Swaby, Ryan Dang, Giuseppe Valentino, Ian Geckeler, & Daniel Nagano-Gerace