Generate a Development Token

In this tutorial we will show you how to generate a development token for the self-hosted PowerSync Service.

Introduction

Development tokens are useful for:

• getting started quickly without implementing full auth config
• sanity checking your sync rules config (were they applied correctly)
• temporarily impersonating a specific user to debug specific issues

Use Case

Development tokens can be used either with the

• test-client, or
• the diagnostics app

Generate a Development Token

Development tokens can be generated via either

• PowerSync Cloud, or
• locally with a self-hosted setup (described in this tutorial)

1. Generate a SharedSecret

   To generate a SharedSecret, you can use this Online JWS key generator:

   You don’t need to edit the default payload in the Online JWS key generator. You simply need to obtain the generated SharedSecret value.

   • Click Generate JWS Keys
   • Copy the SharedSecret value

   Using an online key generator for secrets in a production environment is not recommended.

2. Update powersync.yaml

   Update the k value in the jwks keys in your powersync.yaml config file with the SharedSecret value copied in the previous step:

   powersync.yaml

   # Client (application end user) authentication settings
   client_auth:
       # JWKS URIs can be specified here
       jwks_uri: !env PS_JWKS_URL
       jwks:
           keys:
               - kty: 'oct'
                 k: 'YOUR_GENERATED_SHARED_SECRET'
                 alg: 'HS256'
   

3. Generate a development token

   1. If you have not done so already, clone the powersync-service repo
   2. Install the dependencies
      • In the project root, run the following commands:
        pnpm install
        pnpm build:packages
        

      • In the test-client directory, run the following commands:
        pnpm build
        

   3. Generate a new token by running the following command in the test-client directory with your updated powersync.yaml config file:
      node dist/bin.js generate-token --config path/to/powersync.yaml --sub test-user
      

      You should see an output similar to the following: