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On first load, many websites must make a network request to determine whether a Member is logged in before the site can start rendering the user interface. This slows down users’ ability to interact with the application and ultimately leaves them with a sluggish experience. Stytch SDK’s embraces stale-while-revalidate (SWR) - a caching and data fetching strategy that promises faster time-to-interactivity and snappier UX. While SWR is most closely associated with React, the principles can apply to any web application. Here’s how it works:
  • The page first loads. Stytch’s SDK checks cached data to determine if a Member has logged in previously on the same device, and returns that data to your app immediately.
  • Stytch’s SDK refreshes the Member’s data in the background while your app starts.
  • Your app makes requests to your backend to pull in application-specific data. Your backend validates the session stored in the request’s cookies, and then completes the request.
  • In the rare case that the Member’s session has been terminated from another device, your backend will fail the request and return a 401 error. The Stytch SDK will also notify your app that the session is no longer valid through the useStytchMember and useStytchMemberSession hooks or HOCs.
If a SWR approach isn’t right for you, you can explicitly call stytch.member.get() to refresh the Member object with a network call, and/or stytch.session.authenticate() to make sure the Member is still logged in.