Build a User Management App with refine

This tutorial demonstrates how to build a basic user management app. The app authenticates and identifies the user, stores their profile information in the database, and allows the user to log in, update their profile details, and upload a profile photo. The app uses:

Supabase Database - a Postgres database for storing your user data and Row Level Security so data is protected and users can only access their own information.
Supabase Auth - users log in through magic links sent to their email (without having to set up passwords).
Supabase Storage - users can upload a profile photo.

note

If you get stuck while working through this guide, refer to the full example on GitHub.

About refine#

refine is a React-based framework used to rapidly build data-heavy applications like admin panels, dashboards, storefronts and any type of CRUD apps. It separates app concerns into individual layers, each backed by a React context and respective provider object. For example, the auth layer represents a context served by a specific set of authProvider methods that carry out authentication and authorization actions such as logging in, logging out, getting roles data, etc. Similarly, the data layer offers another level of abstraction that is equipped with dataProvider methods to handle CRUD operations at appropriate backend API endpoints.

refine provides hassle-free integration with Supabase backend with its supplementary @refinedev/supabase package. It generates authProvider and dataProvider methods at project initialization, so we don't need to expend much effort to define them ourselves. We just need to choose Supabase as our backend service while creating the app with create refine-app.

note

It is possible to customize the authProvider for Supabase and as we'll see below, it can be tweaked from src/authProvider.ts file. In contrast, the Supabase dataProvider is part of node_modules and therefore is not subject to modification.

Project setup#

Before we start building we're going to set up our Database and API. This is as simple as starting a new Project in Supabase and then creating a "schema" inside the database.

Create a project#

Create a new project in the Supabase Dashboard.
Enter your project details.
Wait for the new database to launch.

Set up the database schema#

Now we are going to set up the database schema. We can use the "User Management Starter" quickstart in the SQL Editor, or you can just copy/paste the SQL from below and run it yourself.

Go to the SQL Editor page in the Dashboard.
Click User Management Starter.
Click Run.

note

You can easily pull the database schema down to your local project by running the following commands:

supabase link
supabase db pull

Get the API Keys#

Now that you've created some database tables, you are ready to insert data using the auto-generated API. We just need to get the Project URL and anon key from the API settings.

Go to the API Settings page in the Dashboard.
Find your Project URL, anon, and service_role keys on this page.

Building the App#

Let's start building the refine app from scratch.

Initialize a refine app#

We can use create refine-app command to initialize an app. Run the following in the terminal:

npm create refine-app@latest -- --preset refine-supabase

In the above command, we are using the refine-supabase preset which chooses the Supabase supplementary package for our app. We are not using any UI framework, so we'll have a headless UI with plain React and CSS styling.

The refine-supabase preset installs the @refinedev/supabase package which out-of-the-box includes the Supabase dependency: supabase-js.

We also need to install @refinedev/react-hook-form and react-hook-form packages that allow us to use React Hook Form inside refine apps. Run:

npm install @refinedev/react-hook-form react-hook-form

With the app initialized and packages installed, at this point before we begin discussing refine concepts, let's try running the app:

cd app-name
npm run dev

We should have a running instance of the app with a Welcome page at http://localhost:5173.

Let's move ahead to understand the generated code now.

refine `supabaseClient`#

The create refine-app generated a Supabase client for us in the src/utility/supabaseClient.ts file. It has two constants: SUPABASE_URL and SUPABASE_KEY. We want to replace them as supabaseUrl and supabaseAnonKey respectively and assign them our own Supabase server's values.

We'll update it with environment variables managed by Vite:

src/utility/supabaseClient.ts

import { createClient } from '@refinedev/supabase'

const supabaseUrl = import.meta.env.VITE_SUPABASE_URL
const supabaseAnonKey = import.meta.env.VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY

export const supabaseClient = createClient(supabaseUrl, supabaseAnonKey, {
  db: {
    schema: 'public',
  },
  auth: {
    persistSession: true,
  },
})

And then, we want to save the environment variables in a .env.local file. All you need are the API URL and the anon key that you copied earlier.

.env.local

VITE_SUPABASE_URL=YOUR_SUPABASE_URL
VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=YOUR_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY

The supabaseClient will be used in fetch calls to Supabase endpoints from our app. As we'll see below, the client is instrumental in implementing authentication using refine's auth provider methods and CRUD actions with appropriate data provider methods.

One optional step is to update the CSS file src/App.css to make the app look nice. You can find the full contents of this file here.

In order for us to add login and user profile pages in this App, we have to tweak the <Refine /> component inside App.tsx.

The `<Refine />` Component#

The App.tsx file initially looks like this:

src/App.tsx

import { Refine, WelcomePage } from '@refinedev/core'
import { RefineKbar, RefineKbarProvider } from '@refinedev/kbar'
import routerBindings, {
  DocumentTitleHandler,
  UnsavedChangesNotifier,
} from '@refinedev/react-router-v6'
import { dataProvider, liveProvider } from '@refinedev/supabase'
import { BrowserRouter, Route, Routes } from 'react-router-dom'

import './App.css'
import authProvider from './authProvider'
import { supabaseClient } from './utility'

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <RefineKbarProvider>
        <Refine
          dataProvider={dataProvider(supabaseClient)}
          liveProvider={liveProvider(supabaseClient)}
          authProvider={authProvider}
          routerProvider={routerBindings}
          options={{
            syncWithLocation: true,
            warnWhenUnsavedChanges: true,
          }}
        >
          <Routes>
            <Route index element={<WelcomePage />} />
          </Routes>
          <RefineKbar />
          <UnsavedChangesNotifier />
          <DocumentTitleHandler />
        </Refine>
      </RefineKbarProvider>
    </BrowserRouter>
  )
}

export default App

We'd like to focus on the <Refine /> component, which comes with several props passed to it. Notice the dataProvider prop. It uses a dataProvider() function with supabaseClient passed as argument to generate the data provider object. The authProvider object also uses supabaseClient in implementing its methods. You can look it up in src/authProvider.ts file.

Customize `authProvider`#

If you examine the authProvider object you can notice that it has a login method that implements a OAuth and Email / Password strategy for authentication. We'll, however, remove them and use Magic Links to allow users sign in with their email without using passwords.

We want to use supabaseClient auth's signInWithOtp method inside authProvider.login method:

login: async ({ email }) => {
  try {
    const { error } = await supabaseClient.auth.signInWithOtp({ email });

    if (!error) {
      alert("Check your email for the login link!");
      return {
        success: true,
      };
    };

    throw error;
  } catch (e: any) {
    alert(e.message);
    return {
      success: false,
      e,
    };
  }
},

We also want to remove register, updatePassword, forgotPassword and getPermissions properties, which are optional type members and also not necessary for our app. The final authProvider object looks like this:

src/authProvider.ts

import { AuthBindings } from '@refinedev/core'

import { supabaseClient } from './utility'

const authProvider: AuthBindings = {
  login: async ({ email }) => {
    try {
      const { error } = await supabaseClient.auth.signInWithOtp({ email })

      if (!error) {
        alert('Check your email for the login link!')
        return {
          success: true,
        }
      }

      throw error
    } catch (e: any) {
      alert(e.message)
      return {
        success: false,
        e,
      }
    }
  },
  logout: async () => {
    const { error } = await supabaseClient.auth.signOut()

    if (error) {
      return {
        success: false,
        error,
      }
    }

    return {
      success: true,
      redirectTo: '/',
    }
  },
  onError: async (error) => {
    console.error(error)
    return { error }
  },
  check: async () => {
    try {
      const { data } = await supabaseClient.auth.getSession()
      const { session } = data

      if (!session) {
        return {
          authenticated: false,
          error: {
            message: 'Check failed',
            name: 'Session not found',
          },
          logout: true,
          redirectTo: '/login',
        }
      }
    } catch (error: any) {
      return {
        authenticated: false,
        error: error || {
          message: 'Check failed',
          name: 'Not authenticated',
        },
        logout: true,
        redirectTo: '/login',
      }
    }

    return {
      authenticated: true,
    }
  },
  getIdentity: async () => {
    const { data } = await supabaseClient.auth.getUser()

    if (data?.user) {
      return {
        ...data.user,
        name: data.user.email,
      }
    }

    return null
  },
}

export default authProvider

We have chosen to use the headless refine core package that comes with no supported UI framework. So, let's set up a plain React component to manage logins and sign ups.

Create and edit src/components/auth.tsx:

src/components/auth.tsx

import { useState } from 'react'
import { useLogin } from '@refinedev/core'

export default function Auth() {
  const [email, setEmail] = useState('')
  const { isLoading, mutate: login } = useLogin()

  const handleLogin = async (event: { preventDefault: () => void }) => {
    event.preventDefault()
    login({ email })
  }

  return (
    <div className="row flex flex-center container">
      <div className="col-6 form-widget">
        <h1 className="header">Supabase + refine</h1>
        <p className="description">Sign in via magic link with your email below</p>
        <form className="form-widget" onSubmit={handleLogin}>
          <div>
            <input
              className="inputField"
              type="email"
              placeholder="Your email"
              value={email}
              required={true}
              onChange={(e) => setEmail(e.target.value)}
            />
          </div>
          <div>
            <button className={'button block'} disabled={isLoading}>
              {isLoading ? <span>Loading</span> : <span>Send magic link</span>}
            </button>
          </div>
        </form>
      </div>
    </div>
  )
}

Notice we are using the useLogin() refine auth hook to grab the mutate: login method to use inside handleLogin() function and isLoading state for our form submission. The useLogin() hook conveniently offers us access to authProvider.login method for authenticating the user with OTP.

Account page#

After a user is signed in we can allow them to edit their profile details and manage their account.

Let's create a new component for that in src/components/account.tsx.

src/components/account.tsx

import { BaseKey, useGetIdentity, useLogout } from '@refinedev/core'
import { useForm } from '@refinedev/react-hook-form'

interface IUserIdentity {
  id?: BaseKey
  username: string
  name: string
}

export interface IProfile {
  id?: string
  username?: string
  website?: string
  avatar_url?: string
}

export default function Account() {
  const { data: userIdentity } = useGetIdentity<IUserIdentity>()

  const { mutate: logOut } = useLogout()

  const {
    refineCore: { formLoading, queryResult, onFinish },
    register,
    control,
    handleSubmit,
  } = useForm<IProfile>({
    refineCoreProps: {
      resource: 'profiles',
      action: 'edit',
      id: userIdentity?.id,
      redirect: false,
      onMutationError: (data) => alert(data?.message),
    },
  })

  return (
    <div className="container" style={{ padding: '50px 0 100px 0' }}>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit(onFinish)} className="form-widget">
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="email">Email</label>
          <input id="email" name="email" type="text" value={userIdentity?.name} disabled />
        </div>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="username">Name</label>
          <input id="username" type="text" {...register('username')} />
        </div>
        <div>
          <label htmlFor="website">Website</label>
          <input id="website" type="url" {...register('website')} />
        </div>

        <div>
          <button className="button block primary" type="submit" disabled={formLoading}>
            {formLoading ? 'Loading ...' : 'Update'}
          </button>
        </div>

        <div>
          <button className="button block" type="button" onClick={() => logOut()}>
            Sign Out
          </button>
        </div>
      </form>
    </div>
  )
}

Notice above that, we are using three refine hooks, namely the useGetIdentity(), useLogOut() and useForm() hooks.

useGetIdentity() is a auth hook that gets the identity of the authenticated user. It grabs the current user by invoking the authProvider.getIdentity method under the hood.

useLogOut() is also an auth hook. It calls the authProvider.logout method to end the session.

useForm(), in contrast, is a data hook that exposes a series of useful objects that serve the edit form. For example, we are grabbing the onFinish function to submit the form with the handleSubmit event handler. We are aslo using formLoading property to present state changes of the submitted form.

The useForm() hook is a higher-level hook built on top of refine's useForm() core hook. It fully supports form state management, field validation and submission using React Hook Form. Behind the scenes, it invokes the dataProvider.getOne method to get the user profile data from our Supabase /profiles endpoint and also invokes dataProvider.update method when onFinish() is called.

Launch!#

Now that we have all the components in place, let's define the routes for the pages in which they should be rendered.

Add the routes for /login with the <Auth /> component and the routes for index path with the <Account /> component. So, the final App.tsx:

src/App.tsx

import { Authenticated, Refine } from '@refinedev/core'
import { RefineKbar, RefineKbarProvider } from '@refinedev/kbar'
import routerBindings, {
  CatchAllNavigate,
  DocumentTitleHandler,
  UnsavedChangesNotifier,
} from '@refinedev/react-router-v6'
import { dataProvider, liveProvider } from '@refinedev/supabase'
import { BrowserRouter, Outlet, Route, Routes } from 'react-router-dom'

import './App.css'
import authProvider from './authProvider'
import { supabaseClient } from './utility'
import Account from './components/account'
import Auth from './components/auth'

function App() {
  return (
    <BrowserRouter>
      <RefineKbarProvider>
        <Refine
          dataProvider={dataProvider(supabaseClient)}
          liveProvider={liveProvider(supabaseClient)}
          authProvider={authProvider}
          routerProvider={routerBindings}
          options={{
            syncWithLocation: true,
            warnWhenUnsavedChanges: true,
          }}
        >
          <Routes>
            <Route
              element={
                <Authenticated fallback={<CatchAllNavigate to="/login" />}>
                  <Outlet />
                </Authenticated>
              }
            >
              <Route index element={<Account />} />
            </Route>
            <Route element={<Authenticated fallback={<Outlet />} />}>
              <Route path="/login" element={<Auth />} />
            </Route>
          </Routes>
          <RefineKbar />
          <UnsavedChangesNotifier />
          <DocumentTitleHandler />
        </Refine>
      </RefineKbarProvider>
    </BrowserRouter>
  )
}

export default App

Let's test the App by running the server again:

npm run dev

And then open the browser to localhost:5173 and you should see the completed app.

Bonus: Profile photos#

Every Supabase project is configured with Storage for managing large files like photos and videos.

Let's create an avatar for the user so that they can upload a profile photo. We can start by creating a new component:

Create and edit src/components/avatar.tsx:

src/components/avatar.tsx

import { useEffect, useState } from 'react'
import { supabaseClient } from '../utility/supabaseClient'

type TAvatarProps = {
  url?: string
  size: number
  onUpload: (filePath: string) => void
}

export default function Avatar({ url, size, onUpload }: TAvatarProps) {
  const [avatarUrl, setAvatarUrl] = useState('')
  const [uploading, setUploading] = useState(false)

  useEffect(() => {
    if (url) downloadImage(url)
  }, [url])

  async function downloadImage(path: string) {
    try {
      const { data, error } = await supabaseClient.storage.from('avatars').download(path)
      if (error) {
        throw error
      }
      const url = URL.createObjectURL(data)
      setAvatarUrl(url)
    } catch (error: any) {
      console.log('Error downloading image: ', error?.message)
    }
  }

  async function uploadAvatar(event: React.ChangeEvent<HTMLInputElement>) {
    try {
      setUploading(true)

      if (!event.target.files || event.target.files.length === 0) {
        throw new Error('You must select an image to upload.')
      }

      const file = event.target.files[0]
      const fileExt = file.name.split('.').pop()
      const fileName = `${Math.random()}.${fileExt}`
      const filePath = `${fileName}`

      const { error: uploadError } = await supabaseClient.storage
        .from('avatars')
        .upload(filePath, file)

      if (uploadError) {
        throw uploadError
      }
      onUpload(filePath)
    } catch (error: any) {
      alert(error.message)
    } finally {
      setUploading(false)
    }
  }

  return (
    <div>
      {avatarUrl ? (
        <img
          src={avatarUrl}
          alt="Avatar"
          className="avatar image"
          style={{ height: size, width: size }}
        />
      ) : (
        <div className="avatar no-image" style={{ height: size, width: size }} />
      )}
      <div style={{ width: size }}>
        <label className="button primary block" htmlFor="single">
          {uploading ? 'Uploading ...' : 'Upload'}
        </label>
        <input
          style={{
            visibility: 'hidden',
            position: 'absolute',
          }}
          type="file"
          id="single"
          name="avatar_url"
          accept="image/*"
          onChange={uploadAvatar}
          disabled={uploading}
        />
      </div>
    </div>
  )
}

And then we can add the widget to the Account page at src/components/account.tsx:

src/components/account.tsx

// Import the new components
import { Controller } from 'react-hook-form'
import Avatar from './avatar'

// ...

return (
  <div className="container" style={{ padding: '50px 0 100px 0' }}>
    <form onSubmit={handleSubmit} className="form-widget">
      <Controller
        control={control}
        name="avatar_url"
        render={({ field }) => {
          return (
            <Avatar
              url={field.value}
              size={150}
              onUpload={(filePath) => {
                onFinish({
                  ...queryResult?.data?.data,
                  avatar_url: filePath,
                  onMutationError: (data: { message: string }) => alert(data?.message),
                })
                field.onChange({
                  target: {
                    value: filePath,
                  },
                })
              }}
            />
          )
        }}
      />
      {/* ... */}
    </form>
  </div>
)

Storage management#

If you upload additional profile photos, they'll accumulate in the avatars bucket because of their random names with only the latest being referenced from public.profiles and the older versions getting orphaned.

To automatically remove obsolete storage objects, extend the database triggers. Note that it is not sufficient to delete the objects from the storage.objects table because that would orphan and leak the actual storage objects in the S3 backend. Instead, invoke the storage API within Postgres via the http extension.

Enable the http extension for the extensions schema in the Dashboard. Then, define the following SQL functions in the SQL Editor to delete storage objects via the API:

create or replace function delete_storage_object(bucket text, object text, out status int, out content text)
returns record
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
declare
  project_url text := '<YOURPROJECTURL>';
  service_role_key text := '<YOURSERVICEROLEKEY>'; --  full access needed
  url text := project_url||'/storage/v1/object/'||bucket||'/'||object;
begin
  select
      into status, content
           result.status::int, result.content::text
      FROM extensions.http((
    'DELETE',
    url,
    ARRAY[extensions.http_header('authorization','Bearer '||service_role_key)],
    NULL,
    NULL)::extensions.http_request) as result;
end;
$$;

create or replace function delete_avatar(avatar_url text, out status int, out content text)
returns record
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
begin
  select
      into status, content
           result.status, result.content
      from public.delete_storage_object('avatars', avatar_url) as result;
end;
$$;

Next, add a trigger that removes any obsolete avatar whenever the profile is updated or deleted:

create or replace function delete_old_avatar()
returns trigger
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
declare
  status int;
  content text;
  avatar_name text;
begin
  if coalesce(old.avatar_url, '') <> ''
      and (tg_op = 'DELETE' or (old.avatar_url <> new.avatar_url)) then
    -- extract avatar name
    avatar_name := old.avatar_url;
    select
      into status, content
      result.status, result.content
      from public.delete_avatar(avatar_name) as result;
    if status <> 200 then
      raise warning 'Could not delete avatar: % %', status, content;
    end if;
  end if;
  if tg_op = 'DELETE' then
    return old;
  end if;
  return new;
end;
$$;

create trigger before_profile_changes
  before update of avatar_url or delete on public.profiles
  for each row execute function public.delete_old_avatar();

Finally, delete the public.profile row before a user is deleted. If this step is omitted, you won't be able to delete users without first manually deleting their avatar image.

create or replace function delete_old_profile()
returns trigger
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
begin
  delete from public.profiles where id = old.id;
  return old;
end;
$$;

create trigger before_delete_user
  before delete on auth.users
  for each row execute function public.delete_old_profile();

At this stage, you have a fully functional application!

Edit this page on GitHub

Build a User Management App with refine

About refine#

Project setup#

Create a project#

Set up the database schema#

Get the API Keys#

Building the App#

Initialize a refine app#

refine `supabaseClient`#

The `<Refine />` Component#

Customize `authProvider`#

Account page#

Launch!#

Bonus: Profile photos#

Create an upload widget#

Add the new widget#

Storage management#

Build a User Management App with refine

About refine#

Project setup#

Create a project#

Set up the database schema#

Get the API Keys#

Building the App#

Initialize a refine app#

refine supabaseClient#

The <Refine /> Component#

Customize authProvider#

Set up a Login component#

Account page#

Launch!#

Bonus: Profile photos#

Create an upload widget#

Add the new widget#

Storage management#

refine `supabaseClient`#

The `<Refine />` Component#

Customize `authProvider`#