How to Build User Authentication and Account Management in a Headless Architecture

Almost every developer has implemented an authentication system at least once: login forms, OAuth providers, user profiles, roles, and session management. While at first glance this may seem like a small piece of functionality, in practice it quickly turns into a separate subsystem of the application. As the product evolves, the requirements for this part of the system continue to grow. There is a need to support social logins, implement registration via email and password, store user profile data, manage access through roles, and ensure secure handling of tokens and sessions. In traditional architectures, all of this logic is usually implemented inside the backend application. However, when using a headless approach, authentication becomes part of the platform infrastructure rather than a separate module inside the application. This allows responsibilities to be separated: the frontend remains responsible for the interface and user experience, while the backend platform manages user i