cognito-jwt

Cognito Auth with JWT

Key	Value
Services	Cognito
Integrations	AWS CLI
Categories	Authentication; Serverless

Introduction

A demo application illustrating Cognito authentication and user pools running locally using LocalStack. The sample creates a Cognito user pool, registers a user, handles email verification, and demonstrates JWT-based authentication — all without connecting to AWS.

To receive Cognito email verification codes locally, configure the following environment variables before starting LocalStack:

• SMTP_HOST: hostname and port of your SMTP server (e.g., host.docker.internal:2525)
• SMTP_USER: SMTP username (optional)
• SMTP_PASS: SMTP password (optional)
• SMTP_EMAIL: email address used to send messages

Prerequisites

• A valid LocalStack for AWS license. Your license provides a LOCALSTACK_AUTH_TOKEN to activate LocalStack.
• Docker
• localstack CLI
• awslocal CLI

Check prerequisites

make check

Installation

make install

Start LocalStack

export LOCALSTACK_AUTH_TOKEN=<your-auth-token>
make start

Run the application

make run

The script runs an interactive Cognito authentication scenario. Make sure to configure the environment variable $USER_EMAIL with an email address before running.

At certain points, the script will prompt you to enter a confirmation code that has been sent to your email address (the code is also printed in the LocalStack logs):

Please check email inbox for ..., and enter the confirmation code below:

The script will then also ask you to specify a password reset code that is sent to your email:

Please check email inbox for ..., and enter the password reset code here:

Credits: Kudos to @Jaystified, Kurusugawa Computer Inc. who kindly provided the initial version of the testing script in test.sh.

License

This code is available under the Apache 2.0 license.