Library that helps you implement automatic refresh of authorization via axios interceptors. You can easily intercept the original request when it fails, refresh the authorization and continue with the original request, without any user interaction.

What happens when the request fails due to authorization is all up to you. You can either run a refresh call for a new authorization token or run a custom logic.

The plugin stalls additional requests that have come in while waiting for a new authorization token and resolves them when a new token is available.

Using npm or yarn:

npm install axios-auth-refresh --save
# or
yarn add axios-auth-refresh

createAuthRefreshInterceptor(
    axios: AxiosInstance,
    refreshAuthLogic: (failedRequest: any) => Promise<any>,
    options: AxiosAuthRefreshOptions = {}
): number;

• axios - an instance of Axios
• refreshAuthLogic - a Function used for refreshing authorization (must return a promise). Accepts exactly one parameter, which is the failedRequest returned by the original call.
• options - object with settings for interceptor (See available options)

Interceptor id in case you want to reject it manually.

In order to activate the interceptors, you need to import a function from axios-auth-refresh which is exported by default and call it with the axios instance you want the interceptors for, as well as the refresh authorization function where you need to write the logic for refreshing the authorization.

The interceptors will then be bound onto the axios instance and the specified logic will be run whenever a 401 (Unauthorized) status code is returned from a server (or any other status code you provide in options). All the new requests created while the refreshAuthLogic has been processing will be bound onto the Promise returned from the refreshAuthLogic function. This means that the requests will be resolved when a new access token has been fetched or when the refreshing logic faleid.

import axios from 'axios';
import createAuthRefreshInterceptor from 'axios-auth-refresh';

// Function that will be called to refresh authorization
const refreshAuthLogic = failedRequest => axios.post('https://www.example.com/auth/token/refresh').then(tokenRefreshResponse => {
    localStorage.setItem('token', tokenRefreshResponse.data.token);
    failedRequest.response.config.headers['Authorization'] = 'Bearer ' + tokenRefreshResponse.data.token;
    return Promise.resolve();
});

// Instantiate the interceptor (you can chain it as it returns the axios instance)
createAuthRefreshInterceptor(axios, refreshAuthLogic);

// Make a call. If it returns a 401 error, the refreshAuthLogic will be run, 
// and the request retried with the new token
axios.get('https://www.example.com/restricted/area')
    .then(/* ... */)
    .catch(/* ... */);

⚠️ Because of the bug axios#2295 v0.19.0 is not supported. ⚠️

✅ This has been fixed and will be released in axios v0.19.1

There's a possibility to skip the logic of the interceptor for specific calls. To do this, you need to pass the skipAuthRefresh option to the request config for each request you don't want to intercept.

axios.get('https://www.example.com/', { skipAuthRefresh: true });

If you're using TypeScript you can import the custom request config interface from axios-auth-refresh.

import { AxiosAuthRefreshRequestConfig } from 'axios-auth-refresh';

Since this plugin automatically stalls additional requests while refreshing the token, it is a good idea to wrap your request logic in a function, to make sure the stalled requests are using the newly fetched data (like token).

Example of sending the tokens:

// Obtain the fresh token each time the function is called
function getAccessToken(){
    return localStorage.getItem('token');
}

// Use interceptor to inject the token to requests
axios.interceptors.request.use(request => {
    request.headers['Authorization'] = `Bearer ${getAccessToken()}`;
    return request;
});

You can specify multiple status codes that you want the interceptor to run for.

{
    statusCodes: [ 401, 403 ] // default: [ 401 ]
}

You can specify the instance which will be used for retrying the stalled requests. Default value is undefined and the instance passed to createAuthRefreshInterceptor function is used.

{
    retryInstance: someAxiosInstance // default: undefined
}

You can specify the onRetry callback which will be called before each stalled request is called with the request configuration object.

{
    onRetry: (requestConfig) => ({ ...requestConfig, baseURL: '' }) // default: undefined
}

While your refresh logic is ran, the instance is marked as "to-be-skipped" in order to prevent the "interceptors loop" when refreshing causes one of the statuses specified in options.statusCodes. If that's behavior is not wanted, you can set the skipWhileRefreshing option to false, but keep in mind that you need to implement skipping the requests by yourself using skipAuthRefresh flag in request's configuration

{
    skipWhileRefreshing: false // default: true
}

This library has also been used for:

• Automatic request throttling by @amcsi
• OTP challenges with Google2FA by @LeoniePhiline

have you used it for something else? Create a PR with your use case to share it.

Check out contribution guide or my patreon page!