BA
Better Auth•2w ago
momoneko

What's the difference between the session and the token?

Heyo, I've been trying to get better auth to work in a Nest environment. I noticed that a call to signInEmail returnes a token, but I can't use the token to authenticate subesequent; If I register better auth as a direct handler into express, the cookie has an additional suffix. The only way I found to get the actual cookie is to add asResponse and get the cookie from the returned headers. 
        const result = await this.auth.api.signInEmail({
          ...signInRequest,
        });
        const rslt = await this.auth.api.signInEmail({
          ...signInRequest,
          asResponse: true,
        });
        Logger.log(result, 'Sign in successful');
        Logger.log(rslt, 'Sign in successful');

--------- Log output ---------
[Nest] 71710  - 05/05/2025, 3:09:59 PM     LOG [Sign in successful] Object(4) {
  redirect: false,
  token: 'GYTdAiXcovZHov8n5WrAJSzUKJnN70Qg',
  url: undefined,
  user: {
    id: 'lu2UF4tHqspBXEt88eWJcI81jJeI50iG',
    name: '',
    image: '',
    emailVerified: false,
    createdAt: 2025-05-05T08:50:28.790Z,
    updatedAt: 2025-05-05T08:50:28.790Z
  }
}
[Nest] 71710  - 05/05/2025, 3:09:59 PM     LOG [Sign in successful] Response {
  status: 200,
  statusText: '',
  headers: Headers {
    'set-cookie': 'better-auth.session_token=9V35bVng9vcUOVVPrLRVdLNI1Kklkgxw.LgWuyLrRiDaoJ1oCneeKoXLj5fBHcygnL2HTlikKnQA%3D; Max-Age=604800; Path=/; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  },
  body: ReadableStream {
    locked: false,
    state: 'readable',
    supportsBYOB: true
  },
  bodyUsed: false,
  ok: true,
  redirected: false,
  type: 'default',
  url: ''
}
        const result = await this.auth.api.signInEmail({
          ...signInRequest,
        });
        const rslt = await this.auth.api.signInEmail({
          ...signInRequest,
          asResponse: true,
        });
        Logger.log(result, 'Sign in successful');
        Logger.log(rslt, 'Sign in successful');

--------- Log output ---------
[Nest] 71710  - 05/05/2025, 3:09:59 PM     LOG [Sign in successful] Object(4) {
  redirect: false,
  token: 'GYTdAiXcovZHov8n5WrAJSzUKJnN70Qg',
  url: undefined,
  user: {
    id: 'lu2UF4tHqspBXEt88eWJcI81jJeI50iG',
    name: '',
    image: '',
    emailVerified: false,
    createdAt: 2025-05-05T08:50:28.790Z,
    updatedAt: 2025-05-05T08:50:28.790Z
  }
}
[Nest] 71710  - 05/05/2025, 3:09:59 PM     LOG [Sign in successful] Response {
  status: 200,
  statusText: '',
  headers: Headers {
    'set-cookie': 'better-auth.session_token=9V35bVng9vcUOVVPrLRVdLNI1Kklkgxw.LgWuyLrRiDaoJ1oCneeKoXLj5fBHcygnL2HTlikKnQA%3D; Max-Age=604800; Path=/; HttpOnly; SameSite=Lax',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  },
  body: ReadableStream {
    locked: false,
    state: 'readable',
    supportsBYOB: true
  },
  bodyUsed: false,
  ok: true,
  redirected: false,
  type: 'default',
  url: ''
}
Is there a better way of getting the rest of the token? Also wondering about the difference, why give different responses.
1 Reply
Josh
Josh•2w ago
I'm trying to figure out the same thing myself. I'm just now adopting better auth into my stack and im wondering how i should use it with my already existing nestjs setup. Do I just use the useSession hook and get the id, then call my backend anyway? not really sure to be honest and the whole as Response thing confuses me too

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