GitHub v3 vs v4 user id examples

id_example.md

Here's an example of how things could work.

Worst case, we don't get back any 'id' when user authenticates via GitHub. So we only have the 'login' name to work with. Note: all queries below are done with my non-privileged account credentials. (Actually, the queries can be made unauthenticated, but the API rate limits are lower.)

At initial authentication time:

• Query for details of login. The GraphQL query is:

query user_info($login: String!) {
  user(login:$login) {
    login  # not needed, just echos the input value
    id  # the v4 'id', called 'node_id' in v3 REST responses
    databaseId # the v3 'id', called 'id' in v3 REST responses
  }
}

With variables of: { "login": "moz-hwine"}

That returns the response:

{
  "data": {
    "user": {
      "login": "moz-hwine",
      "id": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=",
      "databaseId": 8964373
    }
  }
}

And we would store the v4 "id" value in the database

Later, when we want to validate that the user is still authorized, we can make the query:

query id_lookup($id_to_check: ID!) {
  node(id: $id_to_check) {
    ... on User {
      login  # the field we may need for further API actions
      id  # just an echo of input
      databaseId  # the v3 id
    }
  }
}

With variables of: { "id_to_check": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=" } # 'id' from database

Will return a response of:

{
  "data": {
    "node": {
      "login": "moz-hwine",
      "id": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=",
      "databaseId": 8964373
    }
  }
}

So we have everything we need. Fwiw, here's how to decode the new v4 id's (don't use, just informational when debugging):

$ echo "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=" | openssl enc -base64 -d ; echo
04:User8964373

Where '04' is the number of characters prefixing the v3 'id'