Auth / Author Flow Hardening and Client Separation (#1)

# Merge Request: Auth / Author Flow Hardening and Client Separation

## Summary
This change set improves the authentication–author lifecycle by clearly separating **Auth** and **Blog API** clients, ensuring an **Author is created at registration time**, and preventing user-controlled mutation of immutable identity fields in the UI.

The result is a cleaner contract between services, fewer edge cases around missing authors, and more predictable client behavior.

---

## Key Changes

### 1. Username Made Read-Only in Profile UI
- Disabled the `username` field in `Profile.tsx`
- Prevents accidental or malicious mutation of identity-bound fields
- Aligns UI behavior with backend ownership rules

---

### 2. Dedicated Auth vs Blog API Clients
- Introduced a separate Axios client for the Auth service (`auth`)
- Blog service continues to use `api`
- Both clients:
  - Automatically attach JWT tokens
  - Share centralized `401` handling and token invalidation logic

**Why:**
Auth and Blog are separate concerns and potentially separate services. Explicit clients reduce coupling and eliminate ambiguous routing.

---

### 3. Registration Flow Now Creates Author Automatically
- `register()` now:
  1. Registers the user via Auth service
  2. Creates a corresponding Author via Blog API

This guarantees:
- Every authenticated user has an Author record
- No race condition or implicit author creation later

---

### 4. Correct Endpoint Usage for “Current User”
- `/auth/me` is now correctly called via the Auth client
- `/authors/me` replaces ID-based lookup for the current author
- Eliminates dependency on user ID leaking across service boundaries

---

### 5. Centralized Token & Auth Error Handling
- Shared request interceptor to attach JWT tokens
- Shared response interceptor to handle `401` consistently
- Token invalidation is now uniform across services

---

### 6. Environment Configuration Updated
- Added `VITE_AUTH_BASE_URL` to support separate Auth service routing
- Explicit environment contract avoids accidental misconfiguration

---

## Impact
- Cleaner service boundaries
- Deterministic user → author lifecycle
- Reduced client-side complexity and edge cases
- More secure handling of identity fields

---

## Notes / Follow-ups
- Optional auto-login after registration is scaffolded but commented
- Logout or redirect handling on `401` can be wired later via an event bus or global handler

---

**Risk Level:** Low
**Behavioral Change:** Yes (author auto-created on registration)
**Backward Compatibility:** Requires Auth + Blog services to be reachable separately

Reviewed-on: #1
Co-authored-by: Vishesh 'ironeagle' Bangotra <aetoskia@gmail.com>
Co-committed-by: Vishesh 'ironeagle' Bangotra <aetoskia@gmail.com>

.drone.yml

@@ -66,6 +66,8 @@ steps:
     environment:
       API_BASE_URL:
         from_secret: API_BASE_URL
+      AUTH_BASE_URL:
+        from_secret: AUTH_BASE_URL
     volumes:
       - name: dockersock
         path: /var/run/docker.sock
@@ -76,6 +78,7 @@ steps:
       - |
         docker build --network=host \
         --build-arg VITE_API_BASE_URL="$API_BASE_URL" \
+        --build-arg VITE_AUTH_BASE_URL="$AUTH_BASE_URL" \
         -t apps/blog:$IMAGE_TAG \
         -t apps/blog:latest \
         /drone/src

package-lock.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "aetoskia-blog-app",
-  "version": "0.2.1",
+  "version": "0.3.0",
   "lockfileVersion": 3,
   "requires": true,
   "packages": {

package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "aetoskia-blog-app",
-  "version": "0.2.5",
+  "version": "0.3.0",
   "private": true,
   "scripts": {
     "dev": "vite",

src/blog/components/Profile.tsx

@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@ export default function Profile({
         label="Username"
         name="username"
         margin="normal"
+        disabled={true}
         value={formData.username}
         onChange={handleChange}
       />

src/blog/providers/Author.tsx

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import React, { createContext, useState, useEffect, useContext } from 'react';
-import { api } from '../utils/api';
+import { api, auth } from '../utils/api';
 import { AuthorModel } from '../types/models';
 import { AuthContextModel } from '../types/contexts';
 
@@ -18,7 +18,14 @@ export const AuthProvider: React.FC<{ children: React.ReactNode }> = ({ children
       setLoading(true);
       setError(null);
 
-      const res = await api.post('/auth/register', { username, password });
+      const res = await auth.post('/register', { username, password });
+
+      // auto-login
+      // await login(username, password);
+
+      // now create author
+      await api.post('/authors', { name: null, avatar: null });
+
       return res.data;
     } catch (err: any) {
       console.error('Registration failed:', err);
@@ -34,7 +41,7 @@ export const AuthProvider: React.FC<{ children: React.ReactNode }> = ({ children
       setLoading(true);
       setError(null);
 
-      const res = await api.post('/auth/login', { username, password });
+      const res = await auth.post('/login', { username, password });
       const { access_token, user } = res.data;
 
       if (access_token) {
@@ -99,9 +106,9 @@ export const AuthProvider: React.FC<{ children: React.ReactNode }> = ({ children
   const fetchCurrentUser = async () => {
     if (!token) return;
     try {
-      const me = await api.get<{ _id: string; username: string; email: string }>('/auth/me');
+      const me = await auth.get('/me');
 
-      const author = await api.get<AuthorModel>(`/authors/${me.data._id}`);
+      const author = await api.get<AuthorModel>(`/authors/me`);
 
       const fullUser = { ...me.data, ...author.data };
 

src/blog/utils/api.ts

@@ -1,8 +1,42 @@
 // src/utils/api.ts
 import axios from 'axios';
 
+const AUTH_BASE = import.meta.env.VITE_AUTH_BASE_URL;
 const API_BASE = import.meta.env.VITE_API_BASE_URL;
 
+//------------------------------------------------------
+// COMMON TOKEN ATTACHMENT LOGIC
+//------------------------------------------------------
+const attachToken = (config: any) => {
+  const token = localStorage.getItem('token');
+  if (token) {
+    config.headers.Authorization = `Bearer ${token}`;
+  }
+  return config;
+};
+
+const handleAuthError = (error: any) => {
+  if (error.response?.status === 401) {
+    console.warn('Token expired or invalid. Logging out...');
+    localStorage.removeItem('token');
+    // Optional: eventBus, redirect, logout callback
+  }
+  return Promise.reject(error);
+};
+
+//------------------------------------------------------
+// AUTH SERVICE CLIENT
+//------------------------------------------------------
+export const auth = axios.create({
+  baseURL: AUTH_BASE,
+  headers: {
+    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
+  },
+});
+
+//------------------------------------------------------
+// BLOG SERVICE CLIENT
+//------------------------------------------------------
 export const api = axios.create({
   baseURL: API_BASE,
   headers: {
@@ -10,24 +44,10 @@ export const api = axios.create({
   },
 });
 
-// 🔹 Attach token from localStorage before each request
+// Attach token + 401 handling
-api.interceptors.request.use((config) => {
+api.interceptors.request.use(attachToken);
-  const token = localStorage.getItem('token');
+api.interceptors.response.use((res) => res, handleAuthError);
-  if (token) {
-    config.headers.Authorization = `Bearer ${token}`;
-  }
-  return config;
-});
 
-// 🔹 Handle expired or invalid tokens globally
+// Auth service ALSO needs token for /me, /logout, /introspect
-api.interceptors.response.use(
+auth.interceptors.request.use(attachToken);
-  (response) => response,
+auth.interceptors.response.use((res) => res, handleAuthError);
-  (error) => {
-    if (error.response?.status === 401) {
-      console.warn('Token expired or invalid. Logging out...');
-      localStorage.removeItem('token');
-      // Optionally: trigger a redirect or event
-    }
-    return Promise.reject(error);
-  }
-);

src/vite-env.d.ts

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 interface ImportMetaEnv {
   readonly VITE_API_BASE_URL: string;
+  readonly VITE_AUTH_BASE_URL: string;
 }
 
 interface ImportMeta {