# Plugin Development: List a user’s groups without making a request
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [December 7, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710 "2018-12-07T14:52:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kleinfreund](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kleinfreund)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/1 "2018-12-07T14:52:37Z")
As per “[https://meta.discourse.org/t/getting-users-custom-groups-problems/37792](https://meta.discourse.org/t/getting-users-custom-groups-problems/37792)”, the property `Discourse.User.current().groups` isn’t exposed to all pages.
As per “[Discourse docs: Get a single user by username](https://docs.discourse.org/#tag/Users%2Fpaths%2F~1users~1%7Busername%7D.json%2Fget)”, the response payload includes a `groups` array which would be sufficient.
However, I would prefer to not send a request for this information if I can get it without. Is there a way to list a user’s groups without sending a request?
I need to access a user’s group within my plugins Ember route.
---
### Author:  [@vinothkannans](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vinothkannans)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/2 "2018-12-07T15:25:13Z")
You can add custom plugin code to achieve this. Something similar to below code (unverified). Then you can access it like `Discourse.User.current().groups`
```plaintext
add_to_serializer(:current_user, :groups, false) {
object.groups.pluck(:name)
}
```
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### Author:  [@kleinfreund](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kleinfreund)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/3 "2018-12-07T15:35:46Z")
Great, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Logging `Discourse.User.current().groups` now:
```js
["trust_level_0", "trust_level_1", "admins", "staff", "TestGroup"]
```
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/5 "2018-12-07T15:51:26Z")
I was discussing with @eviltrout about adding this per default for the current user serializer since many themes can benefit from this.
Is this still in your plans @eviltrout ?
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### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2018, 4:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/6 "2018-12-07T16:29:58Z")
> [@Falco](#):
>
> adding this per default for the current user serializer since many themes can benefit from this.
@maja, can you add that to your list?
We should always serialize all the group names of the current user (not only the primary group).
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### Author:  [@maja](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maja)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2018, 9:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/7 "2018-12-20T09:53:59Z")
Current user’s groups were added to the serializer:
>
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### Author:  [@kleinfreund](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kleinfreund)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2019, 9:33am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/8 "2019-01-02T09:33:59Z")
How does one get a user’s groups in the Rails application? Via `current_user`, I have access to a user’s username, etc. but I can’t find a way to access their groups.
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2019, 9:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/9 "2019-01-02T09:39:07Z")
Did you try `current_user.groups`? That should work
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### Author:  [@kleinfreund](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kleinfreund)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2019, 10:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/plugin-development-list-a-user-s-groups-without-making-a-request/103710/10 "2019-01-02T10:15:38Z")
Yes, that works. Thank you. I did try logging that and it came up as not defined. I suppose I must’ve had a typo.