title: Storing google users architectural decision
body: <p>Context: I'm currently working on a MERN application that is very close to a reddit / forum type of application. Users can create posts, comment, rate those posts, rate other comments, follow other users, etc.</p>
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  <p>Right now there are two ways to authenticate:</p>
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  <li><p>The standard user: you just sign up through the app, this I have complete control over - I can add or remove properties (for example: <em>likedPosts</em> in which I store an array of <em>postIds</em>). I'm storing these users in a Mongo database.</p>
  </li>
  <li><p>The google user: I'm currently using this package for react: <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-google-login;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-google-login;</a> the way I persist this user is with a jwt token.</p>
  </li>
  </ol>
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  <p>The issue in the <strong>second case</strong> is that I can't really store anything for users, because I don't have an entry for them in the Mongo database.</p>
  <p><strong>Question I need answered:</strong> What would be your approach in this case? Would you store the google users in the database as well? Or perhaps there is a way for google to hold on to that data?</p>