axios-auth-refresh

Library that helps you implement automatic refresh of authorization via axios interceptors. You can easily intercept the original request when it fails, refresh the authorization and continue with the original request, without any user interaction.

What happens when the request fails due to authorization is all up to you. You can either run a refresh call for a new authorization token or run a custom logic.

The plugin stalls additional requests that have come in while waiting for a new authorization token and resolves them when a new token is available.

Installation

Using npm or yarn:

npm install axios-auth-refresh --save
# or
yarn add axios-auth-refresh

Syntax

createAuthRefresh(
    axios: AxiosInstance,
    refreshAuthLogic: (failedRequest: any) => Promise<any>,
    options: AxiosAuthRefreshOptions = {}
): number;

Parameters

• axios - an instance of Axios
• refreshAuthLogic - a Function used for refreshing authorization (must return a promise). Accepts exactly one parameter, which is the failedRequest returned by the original call.
• options - object with settings for interceptor (See available options)

Returns

Interceptor id in case you want to reject it manually.

Usage

In order to activate the interceptors, you need to import a function from axios-auth-refresh and call it with the axios instance you want the interceptors for, as well as the refresh authorization function where you need to write the logic for refreshing the authorization.

The interceptors will then be bound onto the axios instance, and the specified logic will be run whenever a 401 (Unauthorized) status code is returned from a server (or any other status code you provide in options). All the new requests created while the refreshAuthLogic has been processing will be bound onto the Promise returned from the refreshAuthLogic function. This means that the requests will be resolved when a new access token has been fetched or when the refreshing logic failed.

import axios from 'axios';
import { createAuthRefresh } from 'axios-auth-refresh';

// Function that will be called to refresh authorization
const refreshAuthLogic = (failedRequest) =>
    axios.post('https://www.example.com/auth/token/refresh').then((tokenRefreshResponse) => {
        localStorage.setItem('token', tokenRefreshResponse.data.token);
        failedRequest.response.config.headers['Authorization'] = 'Bearer ' + tokenRefreshResponse.data.token;
        return Promise.resolve();
    });

// Instantiate the interceptor
createAuthRefresh(axios, refreshAuthLogic);

// Make a call. If it returns a 401 error, the refreshAuthLogic will be run,
// and the request retried with the new token
axios.get('https://www.example.com/restricted/area').then(/* ... */).catch(/* ... */);

Skipping the interceptor

There's a possibility to skip the logic of the interceptor for specific calls. To do this, you need to pass the skipAuthRefresh option to the request config for each request you don't want to intercept.

axios.get('https://www.example.com/', { skipAuthRefresh: true });

If you're using TypeScript you can import the custom request config interface from axios-auth-refresh.

import { AxiosAuthRefreshRequestConfig } from 'axios-auth-refresh';

Request interceptor

Since this plugin automatically stalls additional requests while refreshing the token, it is a good idea to wrap your request logic in a function, to make sure the stalled requests are using the newly fetched data (like token).

Example of sending the tokens:

// Obtain the fresh token each time the function is called
function getAccessToken() {
    return localStorage.getItem('token');
}

// Use interceptor to inject the token to requests
axios.interceptors.request.use((request) => {
    request.headers['Authorization'] = `Bearer ${getAccessToken()}`;
    return request;
});

Available options

Status codes to intercept

You can specify multiple status codes that you want the interceptor to run for.

{
    statusCodes: [401, 403], // default: [ 401 ]
}

Customize intercept logic

You can provide a custom function to determine whether a failed request should trigger a refresh. When shouldRefresh is configured, the statusCodes logic is ignored.

{
    shouldRefresh: (error) =>
        error?.response?.data?.business_error_code === 100385,
}

Retry instance for stalled requests

You can specify the instance which will be used for retrying the stalled requests. Default value is undefined and the instance passed to createAuthRefresh function is used.

{
    retryInstance: someAxiosInstance, // default: undefined
}

onRetry callback before sending the stalled requests

You can specify the onRetry callback which will be called before each stalled request is called with the request configuration object.

{
    onRetry: (requestConfig) => ({ ...requestConfig, baseURL: '' }), // default: undefined
}

Deduplicate refresh calls

By default (deduplicateRefresh: true), the interceptor ensures that only one refresh call runs at a time. While the refresh is in progress, the axios instance is paused — any new requests are queued and resolved automatically once the refresh completes.

This is the recommended behavior for most applications. If you need every failed request to independently trigger its own refresh cycle, you can disable it:

{
    deduplicateRefresh: false, // default: true
}

When disabled, you must mark your refresh calls with skipAuthRefresh to avoid interceptor loops.

Intercept on network error

Some CORS APIs may not return CORS response headers when an HTTP 401 Unauthorized response is returned. In this scenario, the browser won't be able to read the response headers to determine the response status code.

To intercept any network error, enable the interceptNetworkError option.

CAUTION: This should be used as a last resort. If this is used to work around an API that doesn't support CORS with an HTTP 401 response, your retry logic can test for network connectivity attempting refresh authentication.

{
    interceptNetworkError: true, // default: undefined
}

Examples

The examples/ folder contains runnable examples that double as end-to-end tests:

• basic-refresh — Core 401 → refresh → retry flow
• skip-auth-refresh — skipAuthRefresh flag skips interception
• pause-instance — deduplicateRefresh with concurrent requests
• custom-status-codes — statusCodes + shouldRefresh callback
• on-retry-callback — onRetry config mutation before retry
• network-error — interceptNetworkError for CORS scenarios

Run them all:

npm run examples

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Other usages of the library

This library has also been used for:

• Automatic request throttling by @amcsi
• OTP challenges with Google2FA by @LeoniePhiline

have you used it for something else? Create a PR with your use case to share it.

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Want to help?

Check out contribution guide or my patreon page!