useUser has a differently typed user object than currentUser and clerkClient.users.getUser

[kyldvs]

Preliminary Checks

• I have reviewed the documentation: https://clerk.com/docs

• I have searched for existing issues: https://github.com/clerk/javascript/issues

• I have not already reached out to Clerk support via email or Discord (if you have, no need to open an issue here)

• This issue is not a question, general help request, or anything other than a bug report directly related to Clerk. Please ask questions in our Discord community: https://clerk.com/discord.

Reproduction / Replay Link

https://github.com/clerk/javascript/blob/main/packages/nextjs/src/app-router/server/currentUser.ts#L6

Publishable key

pk_test_1234567890

Description

When developing with Clerk the user objects returned from useUser() and currentUser() are different. Notably primaryEmailAddress and fullName exists in useUser().user, but doesn't exist in currentUser(). This inconsistency makes it more difficult to create shared utils and generally share things across different parts of our application.

The docs claim that these are the same User object, but that is not accurate.

The currentUser helper returns the User object of the currently active user. This is the same User object that is returned by the useUser hook.

The deviation occurs because useUser from clerk-react users clerk-types/UserResource: https://github.com/clerk/javascript/blob/main/packages/react/src/hooks/useUser.ts#L1

And currentUser uses clerk-backend/User: https://github.com/clerk/javascript/blob/main/packages/nextjs/src/app-router/server/currentUser.ts#L1

Expected behavior:

useUser().user and currentUser() should be the same type

Actual behavior:

They are not the same type

Environment

Not relevant and hard to get correct packages from a mono repo, but here it is for the root:


  System:
    OS: macOS 14.1
    CPU: (12) arm64 Apple M2 Max
    Memory: 53.19 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 5.9 - /bin/zsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 20.3.1 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v20.3.1/bin/node
    npm: 9.6.7 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v20.3.1/bin/npm
    pnpm: 8.10.0 - ~/.nvm/versions/node/v20.3.1/bin/pnpm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 119.0.6045.159
    Safari: 17.1
  npmPackages:
    @babel/preset-typescript: ^7.22.15 => 7.22.15
    @commitlint/cli: ^17.6.7 => 17.6.7
    @commitlint/config-conventional: ^17.6.7 => 17.6.7
    @knnlabs/configs: workspace:* => 0.0.0
    @knnlabs/eslint-config-custom: workspace:* => 0.0.0
    @trivago/prettier-plugin-sort-imports: ^4.2.0 => 4.2.0
    @turbo/gen: ^1.10.12 => 1.10.12
    @types/jest: ^29.5.4 => 29.5.4
    bun: ^1.0.3 => 1.0.3
    eslint: ^8.46.0 => 8.50.0
    husky: ^8.0.3 => 8.0.3
    jest: ^29.6.4 => 29.6.4
    lint-staged: ^13.2.3 => 13.2.3
    prettier: ^3.0.0 => 3.0.0
    prettier-plugin-prisma: ^5.0.0 => 5.0.0
    turbo: ^1.10.16 => 1.10.16

[panteliselef]

Hey @kyldvs, those are 2 different types and should not be treated as a "common" interface.

firstName exists for both types. You are correct primaryEmailAddress only exists for the client one, as a workaround you can depend on primaryEmailAddressId and the emailAddresses array which both exist in both types.

F.e.

primaryEmailAddress = emailAddresses.find(({ id }) => id === primaryEmailAddressId)

[kyldvs]

Thanks for the fast response! I guess at a minimum this is an error in the documentation, but I am hoping this can be updated to be the same interface for both.

Right now it's annoying to share some utilities working with Clerk users across server & client because of the different types (in a graphql context, not SSR, otherwise I could just use the same hooks). Is that possible or is it intentional that these types are different?

---

The error in the documentation would be that the currentUser() page claims to return a User object, and that user page claims to have properties like fullName and primaryEmailAddress (also to avoid potential confusion you mention firstName, but I have been talking about only fullName in this issue). But the currentUser() function does not return an object with those properties.

[Jhinger]

Also experienced this issue while trying to get a users' organizationMemberships from currentUser - the User type returned from currentUser and useUser are not the same and the docs should be updated to reflect that (or ideally as @kyldvs mentioned the interfaces should be updated to match).

https://clerk.com/docs/references/nextjs/current-user

[ubersan]

It would be indeed nice to know if it's planned to also provide the additional properties (e.g. orgs) in the server-side variant currentUser.

[thinkjrs]

I also ran into this today and would love to see the interfaces match if possible! @panteliselef 🙏 Thanks for the solution, this works fine for now!

[qublaidev]

I tried to pass the user coming from useUser() but I get the following error:

Type 'UserResource' is missing the following properties from type 'UserResource': passkeys, createPasskey

Upon further investigation I stumbled upon the problem that UserResource type used in useUser() does not include passkeys and createPasskey that is coming from UserResource at @clerk/types