From fdea1bf55aee0a719148d32d3f67309bee6b5a4f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: brkalow <bryce@clerk.dev>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2026 10:25:14 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] short circuit satellite sync when session cookie is present

---
 .changeset/cute-frogs-rest.md          | 5 +++++
 packages/backend/src/tokens/request.ts | 9 ++++++++-
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 .changeset/cute-frogs-rest.md

diff --git a/.changeset/cute-frogs-rest.md b/.changeset/cute-frogs-rest.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..b473904a939
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/cute-frogs-rest.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@clerk/backend': minor
+---
+
+Optimzie satellite sync flow to reduce redirects.
diff --git a/packages/backend/src/tokens/request.ts b/packages/backend/src/tokens/request.ts
index 0061828b026..b2faa3d0acc 100644
--- a/packages/backend/src/tokens/request.ts
+++ b/packages/backend/src/tokens/request.ts
@@ -461,8 +461,15 @@ export const authenticateRequest: AuthenticateRequest = (async (
         }
       }
     }
+
+    // Only trigger satellite sync handshake if we don't have session cookies.
+    // If we have cookies, the client is already linked - fall through to normal
+    // verification flow which can leverage the refresh flow for expired tokens
+    // instead of requiring a full multi-domain handshake.
+    const isLinked = authenticateContext.clientUat && authenticateContext.sessionTokenInCookie;
+
     const isRequestEligibleForMultiDomainSync =
-      authenticateContext.isSatellite && authenticateContext.secFetchDest === 'document';
+      authenticateContext.isSatellite && authenticateContext.secFetchDest === 'document' && !isLinked;
 
     /**
      * Begin multi-domain sync flows