Authentication

App authentication flow

The app authentication flow is suitable in situations where you only need data from a single app and do not wish authenticate as a specific user. It is similar to the username & password flow, but uses the app ID and a special app token as the login credentials.

When you authenticate as an app you can only access that specific app and if you create content it will appear as having been created by the app itself rather than a specific user. Good uses for the app authentication flow are automated scripts that run without any user interaction.

To gain an access token, you make a POST request to our endpoint with your authentication parameters placed in the request body. The grant_type parameter set to app.


      HTTP METHOD: POST
      URL: https://api.podio.com/oauth/token/v2
      HEADER:  "Content-Type: application/json"
      BODY:
      {
        "grant_type": "app",
        "app_id": YOUR_PODIO_APP_ID,
        "app_token": YOUR_PODIO_APP_TOKEN,
        "client_id": YOUR_CLIENT_ID,
        "redirect_uri": YOUR_URL,
        "client_secret": YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET
      }

You can find the Podio App ID and Podio App Token by going to your app in Podio and clicking the Developer link in the settings dropdown.

If your app is successfully authenticated and the credentials provided are valid, the API will return the access token:


{
  "access_token": ACCESS_TOKEN
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": EXPIRES_IN,
  "refresh_token": REFRESH_TOKEN,
  "ref":
  {
    "type": "app",
    "id": APP_ID
  }
}

Example code

The example code below show you how to do app authentication using the Ruby gem or PHP client.

php ruby


Podio.setup(
  :api_key    => 'YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
  :api_secret => 'YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET'
)

begin
  Podio.client.authenticate_with_app('YOUR_APP_ID', 'YOUR_APP_TOKEN')

  # Authentication was a success, now you can start making API calls.

rescue Podio::PodioError => ex
  # Something went wrong
end


Podio::setup(YOUR_CLIENT_ID, YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET);

try {
  Podio::authenticate_with_app(YOUR_APP_ID, YOUR_APP_TOKEN);

  // Authentication was a success, now you can start making API calls.

}
catch (PodioError $e) {
  // Something went wrong. Examine $e->body['error_description'] for a description of the error.
}