How to create custom authenticators ?

[Sunchock]

Hi,

For my project, I need to create my own Authenticator with a custom User Provider and User entity.

I created a class into a file named App\Shield\Authenticators\MyAuthenticator for example and tried replacing "CodeIgniter\Shield\Entities\User" with my own: "App\Entities\User". However, i'm getting an error in the "login" function : it's not compatible with the prototype declaration of the AuthenticatorInterface. This is due to the class of the $user parameter.

I thought I could extend a "BaseAuthenticator" like the "BaseModel" for models, but I couldn't find anything in the Shield source code.

My question is: Is it possible to create my own authenticator, and if so, how?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[datamweb]

You can absolutely create a custom User Provider and User Entity — Shield fully supports this out of the box, and you can set them up easily by following the documentation.

Regarding a custom Authenticator: Shield already provides a solid set of built-in authentication methods, including:

    /**
     * --------------------------------------------------------------------
     * Authenticators
     * --------------------------------------------------------------------
     * The available authentication systems, listed
     * with alias and class name. These can be referenced
     * by alias in the auth helper:
     *      auth('tokens')->attempt($credentials);
     *
     * @var array<string, class-string<AuthenticatorInterface>>
     */
    public array $authenticators = [
        'tokens'  => AccessTokens::class,
        'session' => Session::class,
        'hmac'    => HmacSha256::class,
        // 'jwt'     => JWT::class,
    ];

These cover most use cases in typical applications.
Because of that, it’s not entirely clear why you would need a completely custom authenticator.

If you can explain what specific behavior or functionality you’re trying to achieve — something that the existing authenticators cannot provide — it would help a lot. There may be a simpler or more integrated solution available for what you’re trying to do.