Use existing Cognito resources

Amplify Auth can be configured to use an existing Amazon Cognito user pool and identity pool. If you are in a team setting or part of a company that has previously created auth resources, you can configure the client library directly, or maintain references with AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) in your Amplify backend.

Note: when using existing auth resources, it may be necessary to add additional policies or permissions for your authenticated and unauthenticated IAM roles. These changes must be performed manually.

Use auth resources without an Amplify backend

Configuring the mobile client libraries directly is not supported, however you can manually create amplify_outputs.json with the following schema:

Note: it is strongly recommended to use backend outputs to generate this file for each sandbox or branch deployment

amplify_outputs.json
  "version": "1",
  "auth": {
    "aws_region": "<your-cognito-aws-region>",
    "user_pool_id": "<your-cognito-user-pool-id>",
    "user_pool_client_id": "<your-cognito-user-pool-client-id>",
    "identity_pool_id": "<your-cognito-identity-pool-id>",
    "username_attributes": ["email"],
    "standard_required_attributes": ["email"],
    "user_verification_types": ["email"],
    "unauthenticated_identities_enabled": true,
    "password_policy": {
      "min_length": 8,
      "require_lowercase": true,
      "require_uppercase": true,
      "require_numbers": true,
      "require_symbols": true

Use auth resources with an Amplify backend

Warning: Amplify resources do not support including auth configurations by referencing with CDK. We are currently working to improve this experience by providing first-class support for referencing existing auth resources. View the RFC for referenceAuth for more details

Next steps

Learn how to connect your frontend

Advanced workflows

Use AWS SDK