In this episode, we dive into handling CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) errors in a more user-friendly way. We start off by replicating a CSRF error in our app—just to see what happens when a token mismatch occurs during login. Instead of relying on the default error response, we want to show a custom, helpful page.
To achieve this, we set up a custom failure handler on our CSRF guard that throws our very own exception when a token mismatch is detected. We build a new exception class (extending an HTTP exception for the right response codes) and set it to use a 422 status code, which is typical for these types of errors.
Next, we take advantage of our automatic view rendering for HTTP status codes by creating a new view for the 422 code. We make sure the message is clear and actionable, like telling the user to refresh the page if their session or form token has expired due to inactivity.
By the end, anytime there's a CSRF failure, users see our custom page rather than a generic error. Plus, the same pattern can be used to handle any other exceptions in a way that puts you fully in control of the user experience.