Build a User Management App with Nuxt 3

This tutorial demonstrates how to build a basic user management app. The app authenticates and identifies the user, stores their profile information in the database, and allows the user to log in, update their profile details, and upload a profile photo. The app uses:

Supabase Database - a Postgres database for storing your user data and Row Level Security so data is protected and users can only access their own information.
Supabase Auth - users log in through magic links sent to their email (without having to set up passwords).
Supabase Storage - users can upload a profile photo.

note

If you get stuck while working through this guide, refer to the full example on GitHub.

Project setup#

Before we start building we're going to set up our Database and API. This is as simple as starting a new Project in Supabase and then creating a "schema" inside the database.

Create a project#

Create a new project in the Supabase Dashboard.
Enter your project details.
Wait for the new database to launch.

Set up the database schema#

Now we are going to set up the database schema. We can use the "User Management Starter" quickstart in the SQL Editor, or you can just copy/paste the SQL from below and run it yourself.

Go to the SQL Editor page in the Dashboard.
Click User Management Starter.
Click Run.

note

You can easily pull the database schema down to your local project by running the following commands:

supabase link --project-ref <project-id>
# You can get <project-id> from your project's dashboard URL: https://supabase.com/dashboard/project/<project-id>
supabase db pull

Get the API Keys#

Now that you've created some database tables, you are ready to insert data using the auto-generated API. We just need to get the Project URL and anon key from the API settings.

Go to the API Settings page in the Dashboard.
Find your Project URL, anon, and service_role keys on this page.

Building the App#

Let's start building the Vue 3 app from scratch.

Initialize a Nuxt 3 app#

We can use nuxi init to create an app called nuxt-user-management:

npx nuxi init nuxt-user-management
cd nuxt-user-management

Then let's install the only additional dependency: NuxtSupabase. We only need to import NuxtSupabase as a dev dependency.

npm install @nuxtjs/supabase --save-dev

And finally we want to save the environment variables in a .env. All we need are the API URL and the anon key that you copied earlier.

.env

SUPABASE_URL="YOUR_SUPABASE_URL"
SUPABASE_KEY="YOUR_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY"

These variables will be exposed on the browser, and that's completely fine since we have Row Level Security enabled on our Database. Amazing thing about NuxtSupabase is that setting environment variables is all we need to do in order to start using Supabase. No need to initialize Supabase. The library will take care of it automatically.

And one optional step is to update the CSS file assets/main.css to make the app look nice. You can find the full contents of this file here.

nuxt.config.ts

import { defineNuxtConfig } from 'nuxt'
// https://v3.nuxtjs.org/api/configuration/nuxt.config
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  modules: ['@nuxtjs/supabase'],
  css: ['@/assets/main.css'],
})

Set up Auth component#

Let's set up a Vue component to manage logins and sign ups. We'll use Magic Links, so users can sign in with their email without using passwords.

/components/Auth.vue

<script setup>
const supabase = useSupabaseClient()
const loading = ref(false)
const email = ref('')
const handleLogin = async () => {
  try {
    loading.value = true
    const { error } = await supabase.auth.signInWithOtp({ email: email.value })
    if (error) throw error
    alert('Check your email for the login link!')
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.error_description || error.message)
  } finally {
    loading.value = false
  }
}
</script>
<template>
  <form class="row flex-center flex" @submit.prevent="handleLogin">
    <div class="col-6 form-widget">
      <h1 class="header">Supabase + Nuxt 3</h1>
      <p class="description">Sign in via magic link with your email below</p>
      <div>
        <input class="inputField" type="email" placeholder="Your email" v-model="email" />
      </div>
      <div>
        <input
          type="submit"
          class="button block"
          :value="loading ? 'Loading' : 'Send magic link'"
          :disabled="loading"
        />
      </div>
    </div>
  </form>
</template>

User state#

To access the user information, use the composable useSupabaseUser provided by the Supabase Nuxt module.

Account component#

After a user is signed in we can allow them to edit their profile details and manage their account. Let's create a new component for that called Account.vue.

components/Account.vue

<script setup>
const supabase = useSupabaseClient()
const loading = ref(true)
const username = ref('')
const website = ref('')
const avatar_path = ref('')
loading.value = true
const user = useSupabaseUser()
let { data } = await supabase
  .from('profiles')
  .select(`username, website, avatar_url`)
  .eq('id', user.value.id)
  .single()
if (data) {
  username.value = data.username
  website.value = data.website
  avatar_path.value = data.avatar_url
}
loading.value = false
async function updateProfile() {
  try {
    loading.value = true
    const user = useSupabaseUser()
    const updates = {
      id: user.value.id,
      username: username.value,
      website: website.value,
      avatar_url: avatar_path.value,
      updated_at: new Date(),
    }
    let { error } = await supabase.from('profiles').upsert(updates, {
      returning: 'minimal', // Don't return the value after inserting
    })
    if (error) throw error
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.message)
  } finally {
    loading.value = false
  }
}
async function signOut() {
  try {
    loading.value = true
    let { error } = await supabase.auth.signOut()
    if (error) throw error
    user.value = null
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.message)
  } finally {
    loading.value = false
  }
}
</script>
<template>
  <form class="form-widget" @submit.prevent="updateProfile">
    <div>
      <label for="email">Email</label>
      <input id="email" type="text" :value="user.email" disabled />
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="username">Username</label>
      <input id="username" type="text" v-model="username" />
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="website">Website</label>
      <input id="website" type="url" v-model="website" />
    </div>
    <div>
      <input
        type="submit"
        class="button primary block"
        :value="loading ? 'Loading ...' : 'Update'"
        :disabled="loading"
      />
    </div>
    <div>
      <button class="button block" @click="signOut" :disabled="loading">Sign Out</button>
    </div>
  </form>
</template>

Launch!#

Now that we have all the components in place, let's update app.vue:

app.vue

<script setup>
const user = useSupabaseUser()
</script>
<template>
  <div class="container" style="padding: 50px 0 100px 0">
    <Account v-if="user" />
    <Auth v-else />
  </div>
</template>

Once that's done, run this in a terminal window:

npm run dev

And then open the browser to localhost:3000 and you should see the completed app.

Bonus: Profile photos#

Every Supabase project is configured with Storage for managing large files like photos and videos.

Let's create an avatar for the user so that they can upload a profile photo. We can start by creating a new component:

components/Avatar.vue

<script setup>
const props = defineProps(['path'])
const { path } = toRefs(props)
const emit = defineEmits(['update:path', 'upload'])
const supabase = useSupabaseClient()
const uploading = ref(false)
const src = ref('')
const files = ref()
const downloadImage = async () => {
  try {
    const { data, error } = await supabase.storage.from('avatars').download(path.value)
    if (error) throw error
    src.value = URL.createObjectURL(data)
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error downloading image: ', error.message)
  }
}
const uploadAvatar = async (evt) => {
  files.value = evt.target.files
  try {
    uploading.value = true
    if (!files.value || files.value.length === 0) {
      throw new Error('You must select an image to upload.')
    }
    const file = files.value[0]
    const fileExt = file.name.split('.').pop()
    const fileName = `${Math.random()}.${fileExt}`
    const filePath = `${fileName}`
    let { error: uploadError } = await supabase.storage.from('avatars').upload(filePath, file)
    if (uploadError) throw uploadError
    emit('update:path', filePath)
    emit('upload')
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.message)
  } finally {
    uploading.value = false
  }
}
downloadImage()
watch(path, () => {
  if (path.value) {
    downloadImage()
  }
})
</script>
<template>
  <div>
    <img
      v-if="src"
      :src="src"
      alt="Avatar"
      class="avatar image"
      style="width: 10em; height: 10em;"
    />
    <div v-else class="avatar no-image" :style="{ height: size, width: size }" />
    <div style="width: 10em; position: relative;">
      <label class="button primary block" for="single">
        {{ uploading ? 'Uploading ...' : 'Upload' }}
      </label>
      <input
        style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden;"
        type="file"
        id="single"
        accept="image/*"
        @change="uploadAvatar"
        :disabled="uploading"
      />
    </div>
  </div>
</template>

And then we can add the widget to the Account page:

components/Account.vue

<script setup>
const supabase = useSupabaseClient()
const loading = ref(true)
const username = ref('')
const website = ref('')
const avatar_path = ref('')
loading.value = true
const user = useSupabaseUser()
let { data } = await supabase
  .from('profiles')
  .select(`username, website, avatar_url`)
  .eq('id', user.value.id)
  .single()
if (data) {
  username.value = data.username
  website.value = data.website
  avatar_path.value = data.avatar_url
}
loading.value = false
async function updateProfile() {
  try {
    loading.value = true
    const user = useSupabaseUser()
    const updates = {
      id: user.value.id,
      username: username.value,
      website: website.value,
      avatar_url: avatar_path.value,
      updated_at: new Date(),
    }
    let { error } = await supabase.from('profiles').upsert(updates, {
      returning: 'minimal', // Don't return the value after inserting
    })
    if (error) throw error
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.message)
  } finally {
    loading.value = false
  }
}
async function signOut() {
  try {
    loading.value = true
    let { error } = await supabase.auth.signOut()
    if (error) throw error
  } catch (error) {
    alert(error.message)
  } finally {
    loading.value = false
  }
}
</script>
<template>
  <form class="form-widget" @submit.prevent="updateProfile">
    <Avatar v-model:path="avatar_path" @upload="updateProfile" />
    <div>
      <label for="email">Email</label>
      <input id="email" type="text" :value="user.email" disabled />
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="username">Name</label>
      <input id="username" type="text" v-model="username" />
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="website">Website</label>
      <input id="website" type="url" v-model="website" />
    </div>
    <div>
      <input
        type="submit"
        class="button primary block"
        :value="loading ? 'Loading ...' : 'Update'"
        :disabled="loading"
      />
    </div>
    <div>
      <button class="button block" @click="signOut" :disabled="loading">Sign Out</button>
    </div>
  </form>
</template>

Storage management#

If you upload additional profile photos, they'll accumulate in the avatars bucket because of their random names with only the latest being referenced from public.profiles and the older versions getting orphaned.

To automatically remove obsolete storage objects, extend the database triggers. Note that it is not sufficient to delete the objects from the storage.objects table because that would orphan and leak the actual storage objects in the S3 backend. Instead, invoke the storage API within Postgres via the http extension.

Enable the http extension for the extensions schema in the Dashboard. Then, define the following SQL functions in the SQL Editor to delete storage objects via the API:

create or replace function delete_storage_object(bucket text, object text, out status int, out content text)
returns record
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
declare
  project_url text := '<YOURPROJECTURL>';
  service_role_key text := '<YOURSERVICEROLEKEY>'; --  full access needed
  url text := project_url||'/storage/v1/object/'||bucket||'/'||object;
begin
  select
      into status, content
           result.status::int, result.content::text
      FROM extensions.http((
    'DELETE',
    url,
    ARRAY[extensions.http_header('authorization','Bearer '||service_role_key)],
    NULL,
    NULL)::extensions.http_request) as result;
end;
$$;
create or replace function delete_avatar(avatar_url text, out status int, out content text)
returns record
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
begin
  select
      into status, content
           result.status, result.content
      from public.delete_storage_object('avatars', avatar_url) as result;
end;
$$;

Next, add a trigger that removes any obsolete avatar whenever the profile is updated or deleted:

create or replace function delete_old_avatar()
returns trigger
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
declare
  status int;
  content text;
  avatar_name text;
begin
  if coalesce(old.avatar_url, '') <> ''
      and (tg_op = 'DELETE' or (old.avatar_url <> new.avatar_url)) then
    -- extract avatar name
    avatar_name := old.avatar_url;
    select
      into status, content
      result.status, result.content
      from public.delete_avatar(avatar_name) as result;
    if status <> 200 then
      raise warning 'Could not delete avatar: % %', status, content;
    end if;
  end if;
  if tg_op = 'DELETE' then
    return old;
  end if;
  return new;
end;
$$;
create trigger before_profile_changes
  before update of avatar_url or delete on public.profiles
  for each row execute function public.delete_old_avatar();

Finally, delete the public.profile row before a user is deleted. If this step is omitted, you won't be able to delete users without first manually deleting their avatar image.

create or replace function delete_old_profile()
returns trigger
language 'plpgsql'
security definer
as $$
begin
  delete from public.profiles where id = old.id;
  return old;
end;
$$;
create trigger before_delete_user
  before delete on auth.users
  for each row execute function public.delete_old_profile();

That is it! You should now be able to upload a profile photo to Supabase Storage and you have a fully functional application.

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