golang-jwt/jwt

★ 9,076GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((golang-jwt))
    What it does
      Create JWTs
      Verify JWTs
      Parse claims
    Signing methods
      HMAC shared secret
      RSA ECDSA EdDSA
      Cloud KMS support
    JWT structure
      Header algorithm
      Claims user data
      Signature
    Security
      Algorithm pinning
      Key type matching
    Use cases
      API authentication
      Microservice identity

mindmap root((golang-jwt)) What it does Create JWTs Verify JWTs Parse claims Signing methods HMAC shared secret RSA ECDSA EdDSA Cloud KMS support JWT structure Header algorithm Claims user data Signature Security Algorithm pinning Key type matching Use cases API authentication Microservice identity

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Issue a signed JWT when a user logs in and verify it on every protected API request without a database lookup.

USE CASE 2

Share verified identity claims between microservices using asymmetric RSA or ECDSA keys so each service validates tokens independently.

USE CASE 3

Migrate a Go app from the deprecated dgrijalva/jwt-go library to the community-maintained v5 using the included migration guide.

Tech stack

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Version 5 introduced breaking changes to token validation compared to v4, use the included migration guide when upgrading from an older version.

In plain English

golang-jwt/jwt is a Go library for creating and verifying JSON Web Tokens, commonly known as JWTs. A JWT is a compact, self-contained piece of data used to prove identity or share verified information between services without requiring a central session store. When a user logs in, a server can issue a JWT that the client sends with future requests. The receiving service checks the token's signature to confirm it was issued by someone holding the right key, without needing to call back to the original server. The token structure is three parts joined by dots. The first part is a header describing which signing method was used. The middle part holds the claims, the actual data being asserted (such as a user ID, a role, or an expiration time). The third part is a cryptographic signature over the first two parts. Tampering with any part invalidates the signature. This library handles both sides of that process. It can create a token by taking a set of claims and signing them with a provided key. It can also parse an incoming token string, verify the signature, and give back the claims if everything checks out. Supported signing algorithms include HMAC-SHA (symmetric, using a shared secret), RSA, RSA-PSS, ECDSA, and EdDSA (each using a public/private key pair). The project is a community-maintained continuation of the original dgrijalva/jwt-go library, which was transferred to this organization after the original author stepped back. The current major version is v5, which made breaking changes to how token validation works compared to v4. A migration guide is included in the repository for anyone upgrading. The README highlights one security point: always confirm that the algorithm in the token header is the one you expected. Accepting any algorithm the token claims to use is a known class of vulnerability in JWT libraries. This library requires the key type to match the algorithm, which prevents the most common version of that mistake. Extensions exist for integrating with signing keys held by Google Cloud KMS, AWS KMS, and hardware security modules.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using golang-jwt/jwt v5, write Go code that issues a signed JWT with a user ID and expiration claim on login and verifies it on a protected route.

Prompt 2

With golang-jwt/jwt, generate an ECDSA key pair, sign a JWT with the private key, and verify it with the public key in a self-contained Go example.

Prompt 3

Show me how to add custom claims to a JWT using golang-jwt/jwt v5 and how to read those claims back out after parsing a token string.

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