Clerk Documentation

The Account Portal provides hosted authentication and profile management pages, eliminating the need to build or host your own sign-in, sign-up, or profile management UIs.

• Web Applications: Can link directly to the hosted Account Portal pages.
• Native Applications (Expo, iOS, Android): Can open the Account Portal in a browser authentication session, which the Clerk SDK then activates within the native app.

When to use Account Portal vs. other options:

• Use Account Portal if you want the fastest way to add authentication with minimal setup.
• Use Prebuilt Components if you need more precise UI customization within your own application.
• Use Custom UI (Clerk API) if you want to build a completely custom user interface from scratch.

The Clerk Expo SDK provides prebuilt components, React hooks, and helpers to simplify user authentication in Expo applications. It supports native authentication flows, hosted authentication via Account Portal, and provides specialized hooks for Expo environments including biometric sign-in and local credential storage.

For a step-by-step setup, refer to the quickstart guide.

Clerk provides several core features to handle identity and access management:

• Authentication: Implement various authentication strategies tailored to your users.
• User management: Quickly add sign-up, sign-in, and profile management to your application.
• Organizations: Manage shared accounts for teams and projects, allowing members with elevated privileges to control access to data and resources.
• Billing: Set up B2C and B2B billing, including subscription plans, free trials, payments, and webhook events.
• Waitlist: Use an integrated workflow to collect signups and control access to features before a product launch.

Clerk supports a wide range of social providers for user sign-up and sign-in via OAuth. To configure a specific provider, you must navigate to its dedicated configuration guide.

If your required provider is not listed, you can:

1. Configure a custom OIDC-compatible provider if it supports the OpenID Connect protocol.
2. Request a new provider via the Clerk feedback roadmap.

Commonly supported providers include Apple, Google, GitHub, Microsoft, Discord, Slack, and many others.

Clerk's native mobile SDKs provide capabilities for several core identity management areas:

• Authentication flows: Handles sign-in, sign-up, and session management.
• User management: Provides tools to manage the currently signed-in user.
• Organization management: Allows managing members, invitations, and organization settings.

The <SignIn /> component renders a UI that allows users to sign in or sign up. Its behavior (available auth strategies and social connections) is primarily controlled via the Clerk Dashboard. The component also automatically handles required session tasks after a user signs in.

Note: If a user is already signed in and your application only allows a single session, the <SignIn /> and <SignUp /> components will not render; instead, Clerk will redirect the user to the Home URL.

The Clerk Expo SDK provides prebuilt native UI components rendered with SwiftUI on iOS and Jetpack Compose on Android. These components provide a fully native authentication experience for Expo apps.

Available Components

• <AuthView />: Renders authentication flows inline in your React Native view hierarchy.
• <UserProfileView />: Renders user management UI inline.
• <UserButton />: Renders the platform-native Clerk button and opens <UserProfileView /> when tapped.

IMPORTANT

These native components are for the iOS and Android surfaces. For Expo web, use Clerk's standard UI components.

import { AuthView } from '@clerk/expo/native'

// Example usage in a Modal
<AuthView onDismiss={() => setIsAuthOpen(false)} />

Beyond basic authentication, Clerk offers tools for advanced application development:

• Securing your application: Implement access control, authorization checks, session options, MFA, password policies, bot protection, and compliance tools.
• Database integrations: Enable Clerk-managed users to authenticate and interact directly with your database.
• Development tools: Manage environment variables, custom auth flows, third-party integrations, testing, and deployment.
• Clerk Dashboard: A central interface to configure your instance, manage settings, and monitor usage.
• SDK Reference: Documentation for calling the Clerk server API via official SDKs.
• How Clerk works: Deep dives into authentication protocols, token management, and security practices.