Unauthenticated Mode¶

Overview¶

What is Unauthenticated Mode?¶

In unauthenticated mode, user lands as a temporary anonymous user with limited access. This anonymous user can only access the existing public dashboards and play with the interactive features in a stateless manner (no database persistence), but cannot create or modify dashboards. This mode is ideal for quick demonstrations or public sharing of dashboards without requiring user authentication.

If the user wants to create its own dashboard, modify existing ones using the same dataset, or create its own basic project and upload a dataset, they can switch to a temporary authenticated user mode. The temporary user will have a limited session duration (24h by default), after which dashboards will be cleared.

Example unauthenticated mode URL is available on documentation landing page: https://depictio.github.io/depictio-docs/latest/.

Screenshots¶

Unauthenticated mode landing page - Anonymous
User is logged as anonymous and needs to login to access more features (create/duplicate dashboards, create project, upload dataset)

Account status switch modal
Once the user wants to access more features, they can switch to a temporary authenticated user mode. The user and the related session information (dashboards, projects, etc.) will be stored temporarily (24h by default).

Unauthenticated mode landing page - Temporary user
User is now logged in as a temporary user and can access more features (create/duplicate dashboards, create project, upload dataset) for a limited time (24h by default).

Configuration¶

Environment Variables¶

Enable unauthenticated mode by setting these environment variables:

# Enable unauthenticated access
DEPICTIO_AUTH_UNAUTHENTICATED_MODE=true

# Configure anonymous user settings
DEPICTIO_AUTH_ANONYMOUS_USER_EMAIL=anonymous@depict.io
DEPICTIO_AUTH_TEMPORARY_USER_EXPIRY_HOURS=24

Helm Deployment¶

For Kubernetes deployments, use the provided values files:

# Deploy with unauthenticated mode
helm upgrade --install your-release ./helm-charts/depictio \
  -f ./helm-charts/depictio/values.yaml \
  -f ./helm-charts/depictio/values-unauth.yaml \
  -n your-namespace

Limitations¶

Session-Based: Data and dashboards expire after configured time
No Persistence: User data is not permanently stored
No User Management: No user accounts, groups, or permissions
Temporary Storage: All content is ephemeral

Use Cases¶

Scientific Outreach and Demonstrations¶

Public sharing of dashboards
Public demos and presentations

Educational Use¶

Training sessions
Workshops and tutorials
Proof-of-concept deployments

Security Considerations¶

Public Access: Anyone can access the deployment
Data Sensitivity: Only use with non-sensitive, public data (e.g., public & published datasets ; data powering the visualizations could be extracted from the dashboard by scrapping the page)
Resource Limits: Configure appropriate resource constraints
Network Security: Use proper network isolation and ingress controls