GitHub v3 vs v4 user id examples

Here's an example of how things could work.

Worst case, we don't get back any 'id' when user authenticates via GitHub. So we only have the 'login' name to work with. Note: all queries below are done with my non-privileged account credentials. (Actually, the queries can be made unauthenticated, but the API rate limits are lower.)

At initial authentication time:

Query for details of login. The GraphQL query is:

query user_info($login: String!) {
  user(login:$login) {
    login  # not needed, just echos the input value
    id  # the v4 'id', called 'node_id' in v3 REST responses
    databaseId # the v3 'id', called 'id' in v3 REST responses
  }
}

With variables of: { "login": "moz-hwine"}

That returns the response:

{
  "data": {
    "user": {
      "login": "moz-hwine",
      "id": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=",
      "databaseId": 8964373
    }
  }
}

And we would store the v4 "id" value in the database

Later, when we want to validate that the user is still authorized, we can make the query:

query id_lookup($id_to_check: ID!) {
  node(id: $id_to_check) {
    ... on User {
      login  # the field we may need for further API actions
      id  # just an echo of input
      databaseId  # the v3 id
    }
  }
}

With variables of: { "id_to_check": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=" } # 'id' from database

Will return a response of:

{
  "data": {
    "node": {
      "login": "moz-hwine",
      "id": "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=",
      "databaseId": 8964373
    }
  }
}

So we have everything we need. Fwiw, here's how to decode the new v4 id's (don't use, just informational when debugging):

$ echo "MDQ6VXNlcjg5NjQzNzM=" | openssl enc -base64 -d ; echo
04:User8964373

Where '04' is the number of characters prefixing the v3 'id'

hwine/id_example.md