`authenticateRequest()`

Authenticates a token passed from the frontend. Networkless if the secretKey or jwtKey are provided. Otherwise, performs a network call to retrieve the JWKS from Clerk's Backend API.


const authStatus = await clerkClient.authenticateRequest();

`AuthenticateRequestParams`

Name	Type	Description
`request`	`Request`	`req` object
`secretKey?`	`string`	The Clerk secret key from the API Keys(opens in a new tab) page in the Clerk Dashboard.
`publishableKey?`	`string`	The Clerk publishable key from the API Keys(opens in a new tab) page in the Clerk Dashboard.
`domain?`	`string`	The domain for the application. For development, you can pass the localhost your application is running on. For example: `localhost:3001`
`isSatellite?`	`boolean`	Set to `true` if the instance is a satellite domain in a multi-domain setup.
`proxyUrl?`	`string`	The proxy URL from a multi-domain setup.
`signInUrl?`	`string`	The sign-in URL from a multi-domain setup.
`jwtKey?`	`string`	The PEM public key from the API Keys(opens in a new tab) page -> Advanced -> JWT public key section of the Clerk Dashboard.
`audience?`	`string \| string[]`	A string of list of audiences.
`frontendApi?`	`string`	The Clerk publishable key (deprecated in favor of `publishableKey`)
`apiKey?`	`string`	The Clerk API key (deprecated in favor of `secretKey`)

Examples

`authenticateRequest({ req })`

Takes the token passed by the frontend as a Bearer token in the Authorization header, and performs a networkless authenication. This will verify if the user is logged into the application or not.


import { clerkClient } from '@clerk/nextjs'
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from 'next/server'
 
export async function GET(req: NextRequest) {
  const { isSignedIn } = await clerkClient.authenticateRequest({ request: req })
 
  if ( !isSignedIn ) {
    return NextResponse.json({ status: 401 })
  }
  
  // Perform protected actions
 
  return NextResponse.json({ message: "This is a reply" }, status: { 200 })