Account Registration

New users can be added to a user area in the Cofoundry admin panel, however more often a site requires a self-service user registration form that users can use to register their own accounts. In Cofoundry a self-service account registration flow can be achieved by combining several different Cofoundry APIs.

The RegistrationAndVerificationSample project in the Cofoundry.Samples.UserAreas sample contains an example of self-service user account registration flow.

Programatically adding a new user

Registering a user starts with the ability to create a new user. In Cofoundry this is done with AddUserCommand, which is a general purpose command for creating new user accounts. It does not send any notification emails, it simply adds the user to the system.

To add a new user, execute AddUserCommand via the IAdvancedContentRepository:

var userId = await _advancedContentRepository
    .Users()
    .AddAsync(new()
    {
        UserAreaCode = MemberUserArea.Code,
        RoleCode = MemberRole.Code,
        Username = "Example User",
        Password = "ExamplePassword",
        Email = "[email protected]"
    });

Adding a user to a custom user area requires the NonCofoundryUserCreatePermission. Typically when registering a new user the command is executed by an anonymous (not signed in) user and therefore we need to elevate permissions to the system user account by calling WithElevatedPermissions() on the content repository. This will be shown in the next example.

Building a verification flow

Sometimes all that is required is to create a new user, but more often there will be other tasks that needs to be included in the registration flow, for example:

• Initiating account verification
• Signing in
• Sending a welcome email
• Initiating a custom authorized task flow
• Running some other custom data access

Below is an example of an account registration and verification flow adapted from the Cofoundry.Samples.UserAreas sample:

public async Task Register(RegisterViewModel viewModel)
{
    // When executing multiple commands we should run them inside a transaction
    using (var scope = _advancedContentRepository.Transactions().CreateScope())
    {
        // The anonymous user does not have permissinos to add users
        // so we need to run the commands under the system account by
        // calling "WithElevatedPermissions()".
        var userId = await _advancedContentRepository
            .WithElevatedPermissions()
            .Users()
            .AddAsync(new()
            {
                UserAreaCode = MemberUserArea.Code,
                RoleCode = MemberRole.Code,
                Username = viewModel.Username,
                Password = viewModel.Password,
                Email = viewModel.Email
            });

        // In this example we require members to validate their account 
        // before we let them sign in. Initiating verification will send an
        // email notification containing a unique link to verify the account
        await _advancedContentRepository
            .Users()
            .AccountVerification()
            .EmailFlow()
            .InitiateAsync(new()
            {
                UserId = userId
            });

        // Complete the transaction if no errors have occurred
        await scope.CompleteAsync();
    }
}