Node.js OAuth Linking: Resolve Social Identity for Existing Users, Avoid Duplicates

The report discusses the importance of proper OAuth linking of social identities to existing users in a Node.js environment. It emphasizes the need to resolve social identity before creating a new patient profile and to avoid duplicates. The recommended approach is to normalize the provider subject, look up an immutable identity key, and then decide whether to link, sign in, or start a new profile.

The report further explains that a social credential should be modeled as a unique identity record rather than an email address. It also suggests keeping the states explicit and emitting a structured event for identity resolution with a decision and correlation ID, while avoiding logging raw tokens. The key takeaway is to focus on the specific actions that fired rather than on generic dashboard metrics like OAuth callback errors.

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