Building a Seamless JWT Onboarding Flow with React Router v7 and Django

Authentication and onboarding are often the highest-friction points in a new user's journey. If the process is clunky or requires too many redirects, users drop off. Recently, I set out to build a streamlined JWT authentication and onboarding flow using a modern stack: React Router v7 (with Vite), TypeScript, and Django REST Framework (DRF) . In this article, I'll walk through the architecture, the backend implementation, and how to handle protected routes securely on the client side. The Architecture Stack Here is what we are working with: Backend: Django, Django REST Framework (DRF), and djangorestframework-simplejwt . Frontend: React (via Vite) and the newly released React Router v7. Styling: Tailwind CSS. State Management: React Context API for lightweight auth state handling. The Goal A user registers. The user logs in. They receive a short-lived access token and a refresh token. The backend knows if the user has completed their profile setup ( is_onboarded ). If they haven't onbo