django-clerk-users 0.2.1

Integrate Clerk with Django

Django Clerk Users

Integrate Clerk authentication with Django.

Note: This package is in early development (v0.0.2). APIs may change.

Features

• Custom user model (ClerkUser) with Clerk integration
• JWT token validation via Clerk SDK
• Session-based authentication middleware (validates once, caches in session)
• Webhook handling with Svix signature verification
• Optional organizations support (separate sub-app)
• Django REST Framework authentication (optional)

Installation

pip install django-clerk-users

For Django REST Framework support:

pip install django-clerk-users[drf]

Quick Start

1. Add to installed apps

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django_clerk_users",
    # Optional: for organization support
    # "django_clerk_users.organizations",
]

2. Configure settings

# Required
CLERK_SECRET_KEY = "sk_live_..."  # From Clerk Dashboard
CLERK_WEBHOOK_SIGNING_KEY = "whsec_..."  # From Clerk Webhooks
CLERK_FRONTEND_HOSTS = ["https://your-app.com"]  # Your frontend URLs

# Optional
CLERK_SESSION_REVALIDATION_SECONDS = 300  # Re-validate JWT every 5 minutes
CLERK_CACHE_TIMEOUT = 300  # Cache timeout for user lookups

3. Set the user model

AUTH_USER_MODEL = "django_clerk_users.ClerkUser"

Or extend the abstract model for custom fields:

# myapp/models.py
from django_clerk_users.models import AbstractClerkUser


class CustomUser(AbstractClerkUser):
    company = models.CharField(max_length=255, blank=True)

    class Meta(AbstractClerkUser.Meta):
        swappable = "AUTH_USER_MODEL"


# settings.py
AUTH_USER_MODEL = "myapp.CustomUser"

4. Add middleware

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django_clerk_users.middleware.ClerkAuthMiddleware",  # Add after AuthenticationMiddleware
    # ...
]

5. Add authentication backend

For Clerk-only authentication:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    "django_clerk_users.authentication.ClerkBackend",
]

For hybrid authentication (Clerk + Django admin):

If you want to support both Clerk authentication (JWT) and traditional Django admin login (username/password), use both backends:

AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    "django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend",  # For Django admin
    "django_clerk_users.authentication.ClerkBackend",  # For Clerk JWT
]

This allows:

• Admin users to log in via Django admin with username/password
• Frontend users to authenticate via Clerk JWT tokens
• The middleware automatically detects which authentication method was used

6. Run migrations

python manage.py migrate

7. Configure webhooks

Add the webhook URL to your urls.py:

from django_clerk_users.webhooks import clerk_webhook_view

urlpatterns = [
    # ...
    path("webhooks/clerk/", clerk_webhook_view, name="clerk_webhook"),
]

Then configure your Clerk Dashboard to send webhooks to https://your-app.com/webhooks/clerk/.

8. Create admin users (for hybrid authentication)

If you're using hybrid authentication, create an admin user for Django admin access:

python manage.py createsuperuser

This creates a user with:

• Username/password authentication (for Django admin)
• No clerk_id (since they're not Clerk users)
• Access to Django admin panel

Note: Regular Clerk users are created automatically via webhooks when they sign up through your frontend.

Usage

Accessing the user in views

def my_view(request):
    if request.user.is_authenticated:
        # Access Clerk user attributes
        print(request.user.clerk_id)
        print(request.user.email)
        print(request.user.full_name)

        # Access organization (if using organizations)
        print(request.org)  # Organization ID from JWT

Decorators

from django_clerk_users.decorators import clerk_user_required


@clerk_user_required
def protected_view(request):
    # Only authenticated Clerk users can access
    return HttpResponse(f"Hello, {request.user.email}")

Django REST Framework

# settings.py
REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    "DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES": [
        "django_clerk_users.authentication.ClerkAuthentication",
    ],
}

Hybrid Authentication (Clerk + Django Admin)

The package supports hybrid authentication, allowing you to use both Clerk (JWT-based) authentication for your frontend users and traditional Django admin authentication for internal staff.

How it works

1. Frontend users: Authenticate via Clerk JWT tokens (handled by ClerkAuthMiddleware)
2. Admin users: Authenticate via username/password (handled by Django's ModelBackend)
3. The middleware automatically detects which authentication method was used and respects existing sessions

Configuration

# settings.py
AUTHENTICATION_BACKENDS = [
    "django.contrib.auth.backends.ModelBackend",  # For Django admin
    "django_clerk_users.authentication.ClerkBackend",  # For Clerk JWT
]

Creating admin users

Admin users don't need a clerk_id (it's optional in hybrid mode):

python manage.py createsuperuser
# Email: [e-mail]
# Password: ********

This creates a user with:

• Username/password authentication (no Clerk integration)
• Access to Django admin panel at /admin/
• Standard Django permissions (is_staff, is_superuser)

Session handling

• Django admin sessions: Traditional session cookies (set by Django's auth system)
• Clerk sessions: JWT validated once, then cached in session with last_clerk_check marker
• The middleware checks for last_clerk_check to distinguish between the two types

Use cases

This is particularly useful when:

• Your admin panel is on a different domain than your frontend
• You want internal staff to access Django admin without Clerk accounts
• You need traditional Django auth features (permissions, groups, etc.)
• You're migrating from Django auth to Clerk gradually

Organizations (Optional)

For Clerk organization support:

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django_clerk_users",
    "django_clerk_users.organizations",
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    # ...
    "django_clerk_users.middleware.ClerkAuthMiddleware",
    "django_clerk_users.organizations.middleware.ClerkOrganizationMiddleware",
]

Management Commands

# Sync users from Clerk
python manage.py sync_clerk_users

# Sync organizations from Clerk
python manage.py sync_clerk_organizations

Configuration Reference

Setting	Required	Default	Description
CLERK_SECRET_KEY	Yes	-	Your Clerk secret key
CLERK_WEBHOOK_SIGNING_KEY	Yes*	-	Webhook signing secret (*required for webhooks)
CLERK_FRONTEND_HOSTS	Yes	[]	Authorized frontend URLs
CLERK_AUTH_PARTIES	No	[]	Alias for CLERK_FRONTEND_HOSTS
CLERK_SESSION_REVALIDATION_SECONDS	No	300	JWT revalidation interval (seconds)
CLERK_CACHE_TIMEOUT	No	300	User cache timeout (seconds)
CLERK_ORG_CACHE_TIMEOUT	No	900	Organization cache timeout (seconds)
CLERK_WEBHOOK_DEDUP_TIMEOUT	No	45	Webhook deduplication cache timeout (seconds)

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or PR on GitHub.