I’m using AWS Cognito for authentication (sign up and login) across my project, and all user management is centralized there.

Now I want to integrate NodeBB, but I do not want to use NodeBB’s UI for login/registration. Instead, I want to:

• Continue using AWS Cognito for user registration and login.

• Expose a common backend service (API) that my other modules (and NodeBB) can use for authentication.

• Use only the NodeBB APIs (not the UI) to handle sessions, topics, posts, etc.

I’m a bit unsure about the correct approach here:

• Can NodeBB rely fully on Cognito for authentication while I interact with NodeBB only through its APIs?

• How should I map Cognito users to NodeBB users (e.g., using Cognito’s sub as the NodeBB uid)?

• Should I use the session-sharing plugin, or is it better to build a custom integration for Cognito?

• What’s the recommended way to keep NodeBB users in sync with Cognito users if I bypass the UI?

Has anyone implemented this kind of API-only integration with Cognito and NodeBB? Any best practices or guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks!