Sessions

A Pylon session is an opaque 256-bit token (prefixed pylon_) that maps to a Session { token, user_id, expires_at, device, created_at, tenant_id }. Tokens flow either as Authorization: Bearer <token> headers or HttpOnly cookies — both resolve through the same SessionStore. There’s no JWT, no signing key to rotate, no refresh-token dance. Just opaque strings you can revoke.

Session shape

type Session = {
  token: string;          // pylon_<64 hex chars> — 256 bits of CSPRNG entropy
  user_id: string;        // points at the User row
  expires_at: number;     // unix epoch seconds; 0 = never expires
  device?: string;        // optional user-agent / device label
  created_at: number;     // unix epoch seconds
  tenant_id?: string;     // active organization (multi-tenant apps)
}

Defaults

Setting	Default
Lifetime	30 days
Token entropy	256 bits (CSPRNG)
Storage	In-memory
Cookie HttpOnly	Yes when cookies enabled
Cookie SameSite	`lax`
Cookie Secure	`true` in non-dev mode

Sessions live in memory by default — fine for development but users get logged out on every restart. For production, point Pylon at a SQLite file:

PYLON_SESSION_DB=/var/lib/pylon/sessions.db

Now sessions survive restarts, deploys, and crashes. The SQLite file is a write-through cache — reads still hit memory, every save/remove writes to disk. On Pylon Cloud, persistent sessions are configured automatically.

Refresh

Rotate a session’s token without breaking the user’s sign-in:

curl -X POST https://your-app/api/auth/refresh \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_old_token'

Response:

{
  "token": "pylon_new_token",
  "user_id": "usr_xyz",
  "expires_at": 1735689600
}

The old token is revoked; the new token has a fresh 30-day lifetime. Use this on long-running clients to keep sessions alive (the Swift SDK has startSessionAutoRefresh(intervalSeconds:) that does this automatically).

Revoke

Sign out the current device

curl -X DELETE https://your-app/api/auth/session \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_token'

Response:

{ "revoked": true }

Also clears the auth cookie (sets Set-Cookie with an expired value).

Sign out everywhere

curl -X DELETE https://your-app/api/auth/sessions \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_token'

Response:

{ "revoked_count": 4 }

Useful when a user changes their password or you suspect account compromise.

List active sessions

curl https://your-app/api/auth/sessions \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_token'

Response:

[
  {
    "token_prefix": "pylon_a1",
    "user_id": "usr_xyz",
    "device": "iPhone 15 / iOS 17",
    "created_at": 1735000000,
    "expires_at": 1737592000
  }
]

The full token is never returned — only the first 8 chars for display. Power users can use this to audit active sign-ins and revoke individual ones.

Cookies vs bearer tokens

Pylon supports both transports for the same Session. Pick based on client type:

Transport	When
Bearer header	SPAs, native apps, server-to-server, curl
HttpOnly cookie	Multi-page web apps, server-rendered apps where XSS resistance matters

To enable cookie auth:

PYLON_COOKIE_DOMAIN=.yourdomain.com    # subdomain-shared if leading dot
PYLON_COOKIE_SAME_SITE=lax             # lax | strict | none (none forces Secure)
PYLON_COOKIE_SECURE=true               # forces HTTPS-only (default in non-dev)

The cookie name is pylon_session. It’s automatically set on:

/api/auth/magic/verify success
/api/auth/password/login success
/api/auth/password/register success
/api/auth/callback/:provider success (both GET and POST)

And cleared on /api/auth/session DELETE. When both a cookie and a Authorization: Bearer header are present on the same request, the bearer header wins — explicit beats implicit.

Multi-tenant: switching organizations

For apps with workspaces/orgs, attach a tenant_id to the session so policies like data.orgId == auth.tenantId can run automatically:

curl -X POST https://your-app/api/auth/select-org \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_token' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"orgId": "org_xyz"}'

The server verifies membership before committing — looks up an OrgMember { userId, orgId } row and returns 403 NOT_A_MEMBER if it doesn’t exist. Clients can’t impersonate an org they don’t belong to. Pass null to leave the org (drop back to the lobby):

curl -X POST https://your-app/api/auth/select-org \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer pylon_token' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"orgId": null}'

After select-org, every request resolves to an AuthContext with tenantId set, and your row-scoped policies see it as auth.tenantId.

Guest sessions

For pre-login state (cart contents, theme preference, anonymous draft), mint a guest session:

curl -X POST https://your-app/api/auth/guest

Response:

{
  "token": "pylon_...",
  "user_id": "guest_a1b2c3d4...",
  "guest": true
}

Guests have a stable user_id (so their cart persists across page loads) but is_authenticated() returns false — AuthMode::User rejects them, so guests can’t access user-only routes. When the user signs in for real, upgrade the guest session in place:

// Sign-in flow that preserves the guest's cart:
import { mutation } from "@pylonsync/functions";

export default mutation({
  args: { realUserId: v.string() },
  async handler(ctx, args) {
    if (!ctx.auth.isGuest) throw new Error("not a guest session");

    // Move the cart from the guest user_id to the real user_id
    const cart = await ctx.db.query("CartItem", {
      where: { userId: ctx.auth.userId },
    });
    for (const item of cart) {
      await ctx.db.update("CartItem", item.id, { userId: args.realUserId });
    }
  },
});

The session token stays the same — the client doesn’t need to re-store it. /api/auth/upgrade is admin-gated and exists for backfill scripts; normal upgrade should flow through magic-code verify or OAuth callback, which mint a fresh user session and consume the guest token.

Programmatic session creation (admin only)

In dev mode or with admin auth, mint a session for any user:

curl -X POST https://your-app/api/auth/session \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <PYLON_ADMIN_TOKEN>' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"user_id": "usr_xyz"}'

This is the back door — never expose it without admin auth. In non-dev, non-admin requests get 403 FORBIDDEN. Use for:

Backfill scripts that need to sign in as a user
Tests
Impersonation features for support agents (gate on auth.hasRole('support') in your wrapper)

Sweep expired sessions

Background cleanup runs automatically — every authenticated request checks expires_at and removes the session if expired. For the SQLite-backed store, you can also trigger an explicit sweep:

// In a scheduled job
sessionStore.sweepExpired();

Cloud runs this hourly. Self-hosted, the on-demand check is usually enough — there’s no harm in leaving expired rows in the table briefly.

Session storage backends

The SessionStore accepts a pluggable SessionBackend:

trait SessionBackend: Send + Sync {
    fn load_all(&self) -> Vec<Session>;
    fn save(&self, session: &Session);
    fn remove(&self, token: &str);
}

Pylon ships:

In-memory — default; lost on restart
SQLite — PYLON_SESSION_DB=path enables it

Custom backends (Redis, DynamoDB, etc.) are a few lines of Rust — implement the trait, pass via SessionStore::with_backend. See crates/runtime/src/session_backend.rs for the SQLite reference impl.

Security defaults

Tokens are 256-bit CSPRNG — un-guessable
Constant-time token lookup — no timing leak on session resolution
HttpOnly cookies — JS can’t read the cookie via XSS
Secure cookies in non-dev — refused over plain HTTP
SameSite=lax — CSRF-resistant by default; switch to strict if you don’t have cross-site sign-in flows
Sessions can be revoked individually or en masse — no JWT-style “until expiry, can’t kill” problem
/me returns the runtime-resolved context, not a fresh DB lookup — admin-token requests show as admin even though they don’t have a session row

Get started

Core concepts

SSR

Auth

Plugins

Clients

Operations

Compare

Session shape

Defaults

Refresh

Revoke

Sign out the current device

Sign out everywhere

List active sessions

Cookies vs bearer tokens

Multi-tenant: switching organizations

Guest sessions

Programmatic session creation (admin only)

Sweep expired sessions

Session storage backends

Security defaults

​Session shape

​Defaults

​Refresh

​Revoke

​Sign out the current device

​Sign out everywhere

​List active sessions

​Cookies vs bearer tokens

​Multi-tenant: switching organizations

​Guest sessions

​Programmatic session creation (admin only)

​Sweep expired sessions

​Session storage backends

​Security defaults

Session shape

Defaults

Refresh

Revoke

Sign out the current device

Sign out everywhere

List active sessions

Cookies vs bearer tokens

Multi-tenant: switching organizations

Guest sessions

Programmatic session creation (admin only)

Sweep expired sessions

Session storage backends

Security defaults