Add Solid to your app
Instantly authenticate external bank accounts for use with the Solid Platform
Overview
Plaid and Solid have partnered to help Solid clients instantly authenticate external bank accounts for use with the Solid Platform. The integration helps Solid clients validate accounts when pulling funds on the Solid platform, whether for funding an account or accepting payments.
Getting Started
You'll first want to familiarize yourself with Plaid Link, a drop-in client-side integration for the Plaid API that handles input validation, error handling, and multi-factor authentication. You will also need to have a verified Solid account to add a bank funding source. Your customers will use Link to authenticate with their financial institution and select the bank account they wish to connect. From there, you'll receive a Plaid access_token
and a Solid processor_token
, which allows you to quickly and securely retrieve the user's financial data via Solid's API. Utilizing Plaid + Solid enables a seamless workflow for connecting external financial accounts to Solid.
Instructions
Set up your accounts
You'll need accounts at both Plaid and Solid in order to use the Plaid + Solid integration. You'll also need to enable your Plaid account for the Solid integration.
First, you will need to work with the Solid team to sign up for a Solid account, if you do not already have one.
Next, verify that your Plaid account is enabled for the integration. If you do not have a Plaid account, create one.
To enable your Plaid account for the integration, go to the Integrations section of the account dashboard. If the integration is off, simply click the 'Enable' button for Solid to enable the integration.
You'll need to complete your Plaid Application Profile in the Dashboard, which involves filling out basic information about your app, such as your company name and website. This step helps your end-users learn more how your product uses their bank information and is also required for connecting to some banks.
Finally, you'll need to go to the Link customization UI and pick the use cases that you will be using Solid to power, so that Plaid can request the appropriate authorization and consent from your end users. If you have any questions, contact Solid.
Create a link_token
In order to integrate with Plaid Link, you will first need to create a link_token
. A link_token
is a short-lived, one-time use token that is used to authenticate your app with Link. To create one,
make a /link/token/create
request with your client_id
, secret
, and a few other
required parameters from your app server. For a full list of link_token
configurations, see /link/token/create
.
To see your client_id
and secret
, visit the Plaid Dashboard.
1const request: LinkTokenCreateRequest = {2 loading_sample: true3};4try {5 const response = await plaidClient.linkTokenCreate(request);6 const linkToken = response.data.link_token;7} catch (error) {8 // handle error9}
Integrate with Plaid Link
Once you have a link_token
, all it takes is a few lines of client-side JavaScript to launch
Link. Then, in the onSuccess
callback, you can call a simple server-side handler to exchange
the Link public_token
for a Plaid access_token
and a Solid processor_token
.
1<button id="linkButton">Open Link - Institution Select</button>2<script src="https://cdn.plaid.com/link/v2/stable/link-initialize.js"></script>3<script>4 (async function(){5 var linkHandler = Plaid.create({6 // Make a request to your server to fetch a new link_token.7 token: (await $.post('/create_link_token')).link_token,8 onSuccess: function(public_token, metadata) {9 // The onSuccess function is called when the user has successfully10 // authenticated and selected an account to use.11 //12 // When called, you will send the public_token and the selected accounts,13 // metadata.accounts, to your backend app server.14 sendDataToBackendServer({15 public_token: public_token,16 accounts: metadata.accounts17 });18 },19 onExit: function(err, metadata) {20 // The user exited the Link flow.21 if (err != null) {22 // The user encountered a Plaid API error prior to exiting.23 }24 // metadata contains information about the institution25 // that the user selected and the most recent API request IDs.26 // Storing this information can be helpful for support.27 },28 });29 })();3031 // Trigger the authentication view32 document.getElementById('linkButton').onclick = function() {33 // Link will automatically detect the institution ID34 // associated with the public token and present the35 // credential view to your user.36 linkHandler.open();37 };38</script>
See the Link parameter reference for complete documentation on possible configurations.
Plaid.create
accepts one argument, a configuration Object
, and returns an Object
with three functions, open
, exit
, and destroy
. Calling open
will display the "Institution Select" view, calling exit
will close Link, and calling destroy
will clean up the iframe.
Write server-side handler
The Link module handles the entire onboarding flow securely and quickly, but does not actually retrieve account
data for a user. Instead, the Link module returns a public_token
and an accounts
array, which is a property
on the metadata
object, via the onSuccess
callback. Exchange this public_token
for a Plaid access_token
using the /item/public_token/exchange
API endpoint.
The accounts
array will contain information about bank accounts associated with the credentials entered by the
user, and may contain multiple accounts if the user has more than one bank account at the institution. If you
want the user to specify only a single account to link so you know which account to use with ,
set Account Select to "enabled for one account" in the Plaid
Dashboard. When this setting is selected, the accounts
array will always contain exactly one account.
Once you have identified the account you will use, you will send the access_token
and account_id
property of the account to Plaid via the /processor/token/create
endpoint in order to create a processor_token
. You'll send this token
to and they will use it to securely retrieve account and routing numbers from Plaid.
You can create processor_tokens
in the following API environments:
- Sandbox (https://sandbox.plaid.com): test simulated users
- Production (https://production.plaid.com): production environment for when you're ready to go live and have valid Production credentials
1const {2 Configuration,3 PlaidApi,4 PlaidEnvironments,5 ProcessorTokenCreateRequest,6} = require('plaid');78// Change sandbox to development to test with live users;9// Change to production when you're ready to go live!10const configuration = new Configuration({11 basePath: PlaidEnvironments[process.env.PLAID_ENV],12 baseOptions: {13 headers: {14 'PLAID-CLIENT-ID': process.env.PLAID_CLIENT_ID,15 'PLAID-SECRET': process.env.PLAID_SECRET,16 'Plaid-Version': '2020-09-14',17 },18 },19});2021const plaidClient = new PlaidApi(configuration);2223try {24 // Exchange the public_token from Plaid Link for an access token.25 const tokenResponse = await plaidClient.itemPublicTokenExchange({26 public_token: publicToken,27 });28 const accessToken = tokenResponse.data.access_token;2930 // Create a processor token for a specific account id.31 const request: ProcessorTokenCreateRequest = {32 access_token: accessToken,33 account_id: accountID,34 processor: '',35 };36 const processorTokenResponse = await plaidClient.processorTokenCreate(37 request,38 );39 const processorToken = processorTokenResponse.data.processor_token;40} catch (error) {41 // handle error42}
For a valid request, the API will return a JSON response similar to:
1{2 "processor_token": "processor-sandbox-0asd1-a92nc",3 "request_id": "m8MDnv9okwxFNBV"4}
For possible error codes, see the full listing of Plaid error codes.
Example code in Plaid Pattern
For a real-life example of an app that incorporates the creation of processor tokens, see the Node-based Plaid Pattern Account Funding sample app. Pattern Account Funding is a sample account funding app that creates a processor token to send to your payment partner. The processor token creation code can be found in items.js
Launching to Production
Test with Sandbox credentials
To test the integration in Sandbox mode, simply use the Plaid Sandbox credentials
along when launching Link with a link_token
created in the Sandbox environment.
When testing in the Sandbox, you have the option to use the /sandbox/public_token/create
endpoint instead of the end-to-end Link flow to create a public_token
. When using the /sandbox/public_token/create
-based flow, the Account Select flow will be bypassed and the accounts
array will not be populated. On Sandbox, instead of using the accounts
array, you can call /accounts/get
and test with any returned account ID associated with an account with the subtype checking
or savings
.
Get ready for production
Your account is immediately enabled for our Sandbox environment (https://sandbox.plaid.com). To move to Production, please request access from the Dashboard. You will need Solid Production credentials prior to initiating live traffic in the Solid API with Plaid.
Support and questions
Find answers to many common integration questions and concerns—such as pricing, sandbox and test mode usage, and more, in our docs.
If you're still stuck, open a support ticket with information describing the issue that you're experiencing and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.