Node.js Available Methods

All resource operations are mounted as sub-APIs on the clerkClient object. You can find the full list of available operations in the Clerk Backend SDK documentation. To access a resource, you must first instantiate a clerkClient instance.

Instantiate a default `clerkClient` instance

If you would like to use the default instance of clerkClient provided by the SDK, you can provide the CLERK_SECRET_KEY as an environment variable and instantiate clerkClient without passing configuration options.


import { clerkClient } from '@clerk/clerk-sdk-node';
 
const userList = await clerkClient.users.getUserList();

If you are interested in a certain resource, you can destructure clerkClient to access just that resource.:


import { sessions } from '@clerk/clerk-sdk-node';
 
const sessionList = await sessions.getSessionList();


const pkg = require('@clerk/clerk-sdk-node');
const clerkClient = pkg.default;
 
clerkClient.sessions
  .getSessionList()
  .then((sessions) => console.log(sessions))
  .catch((error) => console.error(error));

Or if you prefer a resource sub-api directly:


const pkg = require('@clerk/clerk-sdk-node');
const { clients } = pkg;
 
clients
  .getClient(clientId)
  .then((client) => console.log(client))
  .catch((error) => console.error(error));

Instantiate a custom `clerkClient` instance

If you would like to customize the behavior of the SDK, you can instantiate a clerkClient instance yourself by calling createClerkClient and passing in options.

The example below shows how to use createClerkClient to create a clerkClient instance and pass a Clerk secret key instead of setting a CLERK_SECRET_KEY environment variable.


import { createClerkClient } from '@clerk/clerk-sdk-node';
 
const clerkClient = createClerkClient({ secretKey: '{{secret}}' });
 
const clientList = await clerkClient.clients.getClientList();


const Clerk = require('@clerk/clerk-sdk-node/cjs/instance').default;
 
const clerkClient = Clerk({ secretKey: '{{secret}}' });
 
clerkClient.sessions
  .getSessionList()
  .then((sessions) => console.log(sessions))
  .catch((error) => console.error(error));

Customizing resources

The following options are available for you to customize the behaviour of the clerkClient object.

Most options can also be set as environment variables so that you don't need to pass anything to the constructor.

Option	Description	Default	Environment variable
`secretKey`	Server key for `api.clerk.com`. Can be found in your Clerk Dashboard on the API Keys(opens in a new tab) page.	none	`CLERK_SECRET_KEY`
`apiVersion`	API version to use	`v4`	`CLERK_API_VERSION`
`apiUrl`	For debugging	`https://api.clerk.com`	`CLERK_API_URL`
`httpOptions`	HTTP client options	`{}`	N/A

For every option, the resolution is as follows, in order of descending precedence:

option passed
environment variable (if applicable)
default

This means that if you pass an option to the constructor, it will always take precedence over an environment variable.

Another available environment variable is CLERK_LOGGING. You can set its value to true to enable additional logging that may be of use when debugging an issue.

Instantiate a default clerkClient instance

Instantiate a custom clerkClient instance

Customizing resources

Instantiate a default `clerkClient` instance

Instantiate a custom `clerkClient` instance