|
| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: Conditionally enforce Turnstile |
| 3 | +pcx_content_type: tutorial |
| 4 | +updated: 2025-04-01 |
| 5 | +difficulty: Intermediate |
| 6 | +languages: |
| 7 | + - TypeScript |
| 8 | +tags: |
| 9 | + - Node.js |
| 10 | +sidebar: |
| 11 | + order: 6 |
| 12 | +--- |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +This tutorial explains how to conditionally enforce Turnstile based on the incoming request, such as a pre-shared secret in a header or a specific IP address. |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +## Overview |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +You may have setups such as automation that cannot load or run the Turnstile challenge. Using [`HTMLRewriter`](/workers/runtime-apis/html-rewriter/), this tutorial will demonstrate how to conditionally handle the [client-side widget](/turnstile/get-started/client-side-rendering/) and [siteverify API](/turnstile/get-started/server-side-validation/) when specific criteria are met. |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +:::note |
| 21 | +While this tutorial removes Turnstile client-side elements when specific criteria are met, you could instead conditionally insert them. |
| 22 | +::: |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +:::caution |
| 25 | +It is critical to make sure you are validating tokens with the siteverify API when your criteria for enforcing Turnstile are not met. |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +It is not sufficient to only remove the client-side widget from the page, as an attacker can forge the request to your API. |
| 28 | +::: |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +## Implementation |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +This tutorial will modify the existing [Turnstile demo](https://github.com/cloudflare/turnstile-demo-workers/blob/main/src/) to conditionally remove the existing `script` and widget container elements. |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +```diff title="src/index.mjs" lang="js" |
| 35 | +export default { |
| 36 | + async fetch(request) { |
| 37 | + // ... |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | ++ if (request.headers.get("x-bypass-turnstile") === "VerySecretValue") { |
| 40 | ++ class RemoveHandler { |
| 41 | ++ element(element) { |
| 42 | ++ element.remove(); |
| 43 | ++ } |
| 44 | ++ } |
| 45 | ++ |
| 46 | ++ return new HTMLRewriter() |
| 47 | ++ // Remove the script tag |
| 48 | ++ .on( |
| 49 | ++ 'script[src="https://challenges.cloudflare.com/turnstile/v0/api.js"]', |
| 50 | ++ new RemoveHandler(), |
| 51 | ++ ) |
| 52 | ++ // Remove the container used in implicit rendering |
| 53 | ++ .on( |
| 54 | ++ '.cf-turnstile', |
| 55 | ++ new RemoveHandler(), |
| 56 | ++ ) |
| 57 | ++ // Remove the container used in explicit rendering |
| 58 | ++ .on( |
| 59 | ++ '#myWidget', |
| 60 | ++ new RemoveHandler(), |
| 61 | ++ ) |
| 62 | ++ .transform(body); |
| 63 | ++ } |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | + return new Response(body, { |
| 66 | + headers: { |
| 67 | + "Content-Type": "text/html", |
| 68 | + }, |
| 69 | + }); |
| 70 | + }, |
| 71 | +}; |
| 72 | +``` |
| 73 | + |
| 74 | +## Server-side integration |
| 75 | + |
| 76 | +We will exit early in our validation if the same logic we used to remove the client-side elements is present. |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +:::caution |
| 79 | +The same logic must be used in both the client-side and the server-side implementations. |
| 80 | +::: |
| 81 | + |
| 82 | +```diff lang="js" title="src/index.mjs" |
| 83 | +async function handlePost(request) { |
| 84 | ++ if (request.headers.get("x-bypass-turnstile") === "VerySecretValue") { |
| 85 | ++ return new Response('Turnstile not enforced on this request') |
| 86 | ++ } |
| 87 | + // Proceed with validation as normal! |
| 88 | + const body = await request.formData(); |
| 89 | + // Turnstile injects a token in "cf-turnstile-response". |
| 90 | + const token = body.get('cf-turnstile-response'); |
| 91 | + const ip = request.headers.get('CF-Connecting-IP'); |
| 92 | + // ... |
| 93 | +} |
| 94 | +``` |
| 95 | + |
| 96 | +With these changes, Turnstile will not be enforced on requests with the header `x-bypass-turnstile: VerySecretValue` present. |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +## Demonstration |
| 99 | + |
| 100 | +After running `npm run dev` in the project folder, you can test the changes by running the following command: |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +```sh |
| 103 | +curl -X POST http://localhost:8787/handler -H "x-bypass-turnstile: VerySecretValue" |
| 104 | +``` |
| 105 | + |
| 106 | +```txt output |
| 107 | +Turnstile not enforced on this request |
| 108 | +``` |
0 commit comments