Using Cognito with PhoneGap/Cordova - Part 1

The potential for really powerful mobile applications is huge when Cognito is used to combine the power of AWS with your PhoneGap/Cordova application. It is also a great low cost alternative to Parse.com when used for storing user information.
This tutorial will focus on using Cognito with the AWS Javascript SDK for Browser along with the excellent OpenFB library developed by Christophe Coenraets to simplify token creation. The sample app will be created for the Adobe PhoneGap Build process. This could be used with apps that access files on an S3 bucket and also require user information to be stored. I have chosen Facebook as the identity provider but a similar process applies for Amazon and Google. I would recommend only using one identity provider for your app so that your users don't produce multiple Cognito key stores.
With the release of v2.0.14 of the AWS Javascript SDK, a new object CognitoIdentityCredentials has greatly simplified the CognitoID credentials process by removing the need to create STS tokens and temporary IAM credentials. The simplified process to create a Cognito session is as follows:

Code for tutorial is at Github Gist

Register a Facebook App

This process is different to that used with NodeJS because the app will be running from the device local domain.
Go to developers.facebook.com and select Apps - Create a New App

Record your App ID and App Secret somewhere safe, we will need it later.
Click on Settings then click on Advanced (do not fill in app domain details or add platform).
Select Native or Desktop app.

Add https://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html as the Valid OAuth redirect URI.

Enter your contact email and Save Changes
Next select Status and Review
Toggle Yes for Do you want to make this app and all its live features available to the general public?

Now that we have registered our new app with Facebook, we will tell Cognito all about it next.

Create a Cognito Pool

Now that we have a Facebook App registered we need to create a Cognito pool that will be linked to the Facebook app.
Go to the Cognito start page and click Get Started Now

Step 1:
Give your app a name in Identity Pool Name.
Paste your Facebook App ID.
Leave Enable Access to Unauthenticated Identities unchecked.
Click Create Pool
Step 2:
An IAM role has been automatically created for you. Click Update Roles
Step 3:
Example code for native mobile apps has been created for you which is useless for us with javascript so just click Done.

Finished! You have created a Cognito pool and are viewing its dashboard. Next, in part 2 we will use OpenFB to sign in and get our Facebook session token.