Authenticated Request specs

Question

I understand this question has been asked before in various forms.

However I'm struggling with something that doesn't seem to be being solved in these answers. My logged in user is not persisting within the spec.

How are you supposed to replicate authentication/logged in users in a request spec?

Here's what I've tried, and what I'm doing. I'm using Auth0 as my authentication handler. I have a signin method that's called in the Auth0 Callback, so I've jerry-rigged a mock_auth endpoint for my tests to utilize a resource object.

This is my current set up and what I've done to try and replicate the login flow.

#/spec/requests/api/v1/account_spec.rb
RSpec.describe "API V1 Accounts", type: :request do
  # Factories.

  ...

  describe "PATCH update" do
    subject(:http_request) { patch endpoint, params: { account: account_params, format: :json } }

    # set some defaults
    let(:id) { account.id }
    let(:endpoint) { "/api/v1/accounts/#{id}" }
    let(:account_params) { {} }

    # Configure subdomain contstraint
    within_subdomain :api do
      before do |example|
        mock_login(resource) unless example.metadata[:skip_signin]
        http_request
      end

      context "when no resource is logged in", :skip_signin do
        # This spec passes fine, as it's skipping login.
        it_behaves_like "an unauthenticated private api request"
      end

      context "when there is no record to be found" do
        let(:id) { SecureRandom.uuid }
        let(:resource) { create(:user) }

        it "fails to access a record" do
          expect(response).to have_http_status(:not_found)
        end
      end

      xcontext "when the user has access permission" do
      end

    end
  end
end

-

# config/routes.rb
post "/auth/mock/:id", to: "auth#mock", as: :mock_login if Rails.env.test?

-

# auth_controller.rb
def mock
  return unless Rails.env.test?
  @resource = User.find_by(params[:id]
   signin(@resource)
end

def signin(resource)
  reset_session
  create_session(resource)
  after_signin_redirect_for(resource)
end

and I'm using this helper to call it from my request spec

module Helpers
  module Auth
    def mock_login(resource)
      post mock_login_path(resource.id)
    end
  end
end

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include Helpers::Auth, type: :request
end

So. By throwing around a bunch of debuggers and binding.pry I can see that my mock_login(resource) is being called successfully and at the end of the signin method, my helper signed_in? is true. Having successfully set a session.

The issue that I'm having now, is that this is not persisting in the feature spec when it's run in the before block, or in the it block.

before do |example|
  mock_login(resource) unless example.metadata[:skip_signin] # signed_in? == true!
  http_request # signed_in? == nil
end


module API
  module V1
    class AccountsController < APIController
      before_action :authenticate_resource!
      # ^ This is where the spec is failing to recognise the signed in resource from the mock_login method.
      before_action :set_account

      # PATCH /api/v1/accounts/:id
      def patch_update
        # Cancancan Authorization
        authorize! :update, @account 
        # handle patch
        ...
      end

      private

      def set_account
        binding.pry # We're never making it here.
        @account = Account.find_by(id: params[:id])
      end

      ...

    end
  end
end

def authenticate_resource!
  return true if signed_in?
  respond_to do |format|
    format.json { head(:unauthorized) }
  end
end

EDIT: A couple of changes to make it clearer what I'm asking.