🔐 emdash-better-auth — Better Auth for EmDash CMS

[minemeraj]

🔐 emdash-better-auth — Better Auth for EmDash CMS

I'm excited to share emdash-better-auth, a production-ready auth plugin that brings Better Auth to EmDash CMS — an open-source, Cloudflare Workers-powered CMS.

Live demo: https://theweekendprojects.com/auth/sign-up
npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/emdash-better-auth
Repo: https://github.com/theweekendprojects/emdash-better-auth

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🌟 What is EmDash?

EmDash is a modern, open-source CMS built on Astro + Cloudflare Workers with:

• D1 (SQLite) for data storage
• R2 for media
• Full admin UI for content management
• Server-side rendering by default
• Extensible via plugins and auth providers

Traditionally, EmDash used passkey-only authentication for its admin panel — great for security, but not suitable for public-facing sites or membership apps.

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🎯 What emdash-better-auth Does

It transforms EmDash from a passkey-first CMS admin into a full auth backend for public-facing apps — with zero database migrations.

Key Features

Feature	Details
Email/Password	Full signup, login, forgot/reset password flows
Social Login	Google & GitHub (data-driven; easy to extend)
Username Support	Public handle without exposing email
Email Verification	Mandatory verification (blocks bot signups)
Prebuilt UI	HeroUI-styled pages with light/dark/system theme
Admin Settings	Configure via EmDash admin UI — no redeploy needed
Real EmDash Users	Sign-ups land in EmDash's users table (RBAC-governed)

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🖼️ Screenshots

Sign-up Page (HeroUI-styled)

Sign-in Page (Dark Theme)

Admin Settings Page

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⚡ How It Works

One-line install:

import { betterAuthProvider } from "emdash-better-auth";

emdash({
  authProviders: [betterAuthProvider()],
});

That gives you:

• /auth/sign-in, /auth/sign-up, /auth/forgot-password, /auth/reset-password
• /login and /signup friendly aliases
• /account subscriber profile editing (name, avatar, username, bio, password)

Architecture Highlights

• No migrations needed — reuses EmDash's users + _plugin_storage tables
• Better Auth adapter maps to EmDash's column names (emailVerified → email_verified, etc.)
• Plugin storage holds sessions, accounts, verifications under auth:better-auth namespace
• Session bridge — Better Auth logins work site-wide and in /_emdash/admin

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💡 Use Cases

• Membership sites — public signup with subscriber/admin roles
• Community platforms — user profiles, bylines, login-gated content
• SaaS apps — on top of EmDash for content management
• Blogs with subscriptions — email verification + social login

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🛠️ Tech Stack

• Better Auth — auth engine (email/password, OAuth, sessions)
• Better Auth UI (HeroUI) — prebuilt React components
• EmDash CMS — content + user management
• Cloudflare Workers — runtime (D1, R2, KV)
• Astro — SSR framework

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📦 Installation

pnpm add emdash-better-auth
pnpm add -D @tailwindcss/vite  # required for HeroUI styles
wrangler secret put BETTER_AUTH_SECRET

Full setup guide: https://github.com/theweekendprojects/emdash-better-auth#quickstart

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🚧 Roadmap

• 2FA/TOTP — in progress
• More social providers — Apple, Discord, Microsoft, GitLab, X
• Magic-link sign-in
• Organizations/Teams — with Stripe billing (requires upstream EmDash changes)

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🙏 Thanks

Built on the amazing Better Auth framework. All credit to the Better Auth team for the solid foundation!

Let me know if you have questions or want to see it in action on your own EmDash site!

— minemeraj, maintainer of emdash-better-auth