organization-best-practices

Setup

1. Add organization() plugin to server config
2. Add organizationClient() plugin to client config
3. Run npx auth@latest migrate (built-in adapter) or generate + push for Drizzle/Prisma
4. Verify: check that organization, member, invitation tables exist in your database

import { betterAuth } from "better-auth";
import { organization } from "better-auth/plugins";

export const auth = betterAuth({
  plugins: [
    organization({
      allowUserToCreateOrganization: true,
      organizationLimit: 5, // Max orgs per user
      membershipLimit: 100, // Max members per org
    }),
  ],
});

Client-Side Setup

import { createAuthClient } from "better-auth/client";
import { organizationClient } from "better-auth/client/plugins";

export const authClient = createAuthClient({
  plugins: [organizationClient()],
});

Creating Organizations

The creator is automatically assigned the owner role.

const createOrg = async () => {
  const { data, error } = await authClient.organization.create({
    name: "My Company",
    slug: "my-company",
    logo: "https://example.com/logo.png",
    metadata: { plan: "pro" },
  });
};

Controlling Organization Creation

Restrict who can create organizations based on user attributes:

organization({
  allowUserToCreateOrganization: async (user) => {
    return user.emailVerified === true;
  },
  organizationLimit: async (user) => {
    // Premium users get more organizations
    return user.plan === "premium" ? 20 : 3;
  },
});

Creating Organizations on Behalf of Users

Administrators can create organizations for other users (server-side only):

await auth.api.createOrganization({
  body: {
    name: "Client Organization",
    slug: "client-org",
    userId: "user-id-who-will-be-owner", // `userId` is required
  },
});

Note: The userId parameter cannot be used alongside session headers.

Active Organizations

Stored in the session and scopes subsequent API calls. Set after user selects one.