How do I force a password reset for a subset of users?

Hey everyone! Ran into a specific scenario this week and wanted to share my approach and hear how others have handled this. 😊

We needed to force a password reset for a specific group of users (about 50 people) who were flagged in an older system for using potentially compromised credentials. We're using Auth0, and I wanted to do this without forcing *everyone* to reset their password on next login.

Here's what I ended up doing:

* **Created a Rule** to check for a custom user `app_metadata` field (I called it `forcePasswordReset`).
* **Used the `Change Password` template** in Auth0's email templates, and triggered it via the Management API when setting the metadata flag.
* **The Rule logic** redirects users with this flag set to the password change prompt immediately after they log in (using `redirect`).

The key was using the `change_password` prompt in the Rule. It looks something like this in the Rule's code (simplified):

```javascript
function (user, context, callback) {
if (user.app_metadata && user.app_metadata.forcePasswordReset) {
context.redirect = {
url: 'https://YOUR_TENANT.auth0.com/change_password'
};
// Optionally, clear the flag after triggering the redirect
// require('[email protected]').users.updateAppMetadata(user.user_id, { forcePasswordReset: false });
}
callback(null, user, context);
}
```

I then wrote a small script using the Management API to batch update the `app_metadata` for that subset of users. It worked well! The users got an email and were forced through the change password flow on their next login.

My questions for the community:
* Has anyone found a more straightforward way to do this?
* Are there pitfalls with this method I might have missed? I'm thinking about race conditions if a user is already logged in when the flag is set.
* Do you handle clearing the flag automatically after the reset? I did it manually after confirming the resets.

Would love to see if anyone has a comparison spreadsheet for different bulk user operations in Auth0 vs. other platforms!