Using OAuth authentication with your application

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Location: Admin Center > Apps and integrations > APIs > Zendesk API

You can use OAuth 2 to authenticate all your application's API requests to Zendesk. OAuth provides a secure way for your application to access Zendesk data without having to store and use the passwords of Zendesk users, which is sensitive information.

To use OAuth authentication, you need to register your application with Zendesk. You also need to add some functionality to your application to support the OAuth authorization flow.

Topics covered in this article:

• Registering your application with Zendesk
• OAuth client types
• OAuth client credentials grant type
• Implementing an OAuth authorization flow in your application

Related topics:

• For a tutorial on building a web application that implements an OAuth authorization flow, see Building an OAuth web app.
• To implement an OAuth authorization flow in Zendesk apps, see Adding third-party OAuth to a Support app.
• If you don't need users to grant your application access to their accounts, you can still use OAuth tokens to authenticate API requests. See Creating and using OAuth tokens with the API.

Registering your application with Zendesk

You must register your application to generate OAuth credentials that your application can use to authenticate API calls to Zendesk.

Note: This section describes how to set up an OAuth client for users of one Zendesk account. If your application will interact not only with one Zendesk account but with lots of them, you can request a global OAuth client. A global OAuth client is a secure, cleaner way of doing API authentication with multiple Zendesk instances. For more information, see Set up a global OAuth client.

To register your application

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select APIs > Zendesk API.
2. Click the OAuth Clients tab on the Zendesk API page, and then click Add OAuth client on the right side of the OAuth client list.
3. Complete the following fields to create a client:
   • Client Name - Enter a name for your app. This is the name that users will see when asked to grant access to your application, and when they check the list of third-party apps that have access to their Zendesk.
   • Description - Optional. This is a short description of your app that users will see when asked to grant access to it.
   • Company - Optional. This is the company name that users will see when asked to grant access to your application. The information can help them understand who they're granting access to.
   • Logo - Optional. This is the logo that users will see when asked to grant access to your application. The image can be a JPG, GIF, or PNG. For best results, upload a square image. It will be resized for the authorization page.
   • Unique Identifier - The field is auto-populated with a reformatted version of the name you entered for your app. You can change it if you want.
   • Client kind - Public or Confidential. Public OAuth clients are applications that run in environments where credentials cannot be securely stored, such as mobile and web apps. These clients are required to use PKCE. Confidential OAuth clients run on secure servers where their credentials can be kept secure. These clients can use PKCE, client secret, or both. See OAuth client types.
   • Redirect URLs - Enter the URL or URLs that Zendesk should use to send the user's decision to grant access to your application. The URLs must be absolute and not relative, https (unless localhost or 127.0.0.1), and newline-separated.
4. Click Save.

   After the page refreshes, a new pre-populated Secret field appears on the lower side. This is the "client_secret" value specified in the OAuth2 spec.

5. Copy the Secret value to your clipboard and save it somewhere safe. Note: The characters may extend past the width of the text box, so make sure to select everything before copying.
   Important: For security reasons, your secret is displayed fully only once. After clicking Save, you'll only have access to the first nine characters.
6. Click Save.

Use the unique identifier and the secret value in your application as described in this following topic.

OAuth client types

Zendesk OAuth clients include a kind property that is passed during OAuth client creation, and can have one of the following values:

• Public: Public OAuth clients are applications that run in environments where credentials cannot be securely stored, such as mobile and web apps. These clients are required to use PKCE.
• Confidential: Confidential OAuth clients run on secure servers where their credentials can be kept secure. These clients can use PKCE, client secret, or both.

For more information, see Client Types.

Zendesk OAuth client type applies only to the Zendesk Support ticketing system. It is not supported in Chat, Conversations, or Sell.

Existing Zendesk OAuth clients currently have the kind property set to unknown. These clients remain unaffected until the kind property is updated to either public or confidential. New OAuth clients created in Admin Center must set the kind property during creation.

Note: If you are using an existing Zendesk OAuth client and plan to change the kind property to public, you must first implement PKCE. Failure to do so will result in the client not working, as PKCE will be immediately required.

Setting the kind property is mandatory for all new OAuth clients created in Admin Center. While the kind property is not required for OAuth clients created with the api/v2/oauth/clients endpoint, Zendesk recommends including it.

OAuth client credentials grant type

The OAuth client credentials grant type is only for confidential clients and allows you to create an OAuth token using only a specific client’s secret. To use this flow, pass a valid client_secret parameter to the /oauth/tokens endpoint using grant_type: client_credentials to generate a new OAuth access token. Unlike other authorization flows, this grant type does not return a refresh token and it does not require user authorization. The user associated with the token will be the same as the user linked to the client that was used. You can optionally include an expires_in value to set the token's expiration time in milliseconds. For security reasons, public clients are not permitted to use this grant type. For more information, see Oauth Clients.

OAuth refresh token grant type

The OAuth refresh token grant type allows for refreshing an access token that has either expired or is about to expire. To generate a new OAuth access token, pass a refresh_token parameter to the https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/tokens endpoint using grant_type: refresh_token, which returns a new access token and refresh token while invalidating the previous ones.

Your OAuth client should implement a fallback mechanism to handle expired access tokens and expired refresh tokens. For example, if the access token expired or encounters an error, you can refresh it. However, if the refresh process fails or there is no refresh token linked to the access token, you must redirect the user to https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/authorizations/new to re-authorize your application. For more information, see OAuth Tokens for Grant Type and Creating and using OAuth access tokens with the API.

Implementing an OAuth authorization flow in your application

Zendesk supports the authorization code grant flow to get access tokens. This flow is called the authorization code grant flow because you have to get an authorization code before you can request an access token.

The flow uses refresh tokens, which allows you to generate new access tokens without requiring user re-authorization. The access token may expire if the API provides a valid expires_in parameter, indicating a specific lifespan for the token. In such cases, implement a mechanism to refresh the access token using the provided refresh token before it expires.

To implement the authorization code grant flow, you need to add the following functionality to your application:

• Step 1 - Send the user to the Zendesk authorization page
• Step 2 - Handle the user's authorization decision
• Step 3 - Get an access token from Zendesk
• Step 4 - Use the access token in API calls

For a tutorial on building a web application that implements an OAuth authorization flow, see Building an OAuth web app.

The authorization code grant method supports Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE), which adds an additional layer of security. For more information, see Using PKCE to make Zendesk OAuth access tokens more secure in the developer documentation.

Step 1 - Send the user to the Zendesk authorization page

First, your application has to send the user to the Zendesk authorization page. The page asks the user to authorize your application to access Zendesk on their behalf. After the user makes a choice, Zendesk sends the choice and a few other bits of information back to your application.

To send the user to the Zendesk authorization page

Add a link or button in your application that sends the user to the following URL:

https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/authorizations/new

where {subdomain} is your Zendesk core subdomain, not a host-mapped subdomain.

You can use either a POST or a GET request. Include the following parameters:

• response_type - Required. Zendesk returns an authorization code in the response, so specify code as the response type. Example: response_type=code.
• redirect_uri - Required. The URL that Zendesk should use to send the user's decision to grant access to your application. The URL has to be absolute and not relative. It also has to be secure (https) unless you're using localhost or 127.0.0.1.
• client_id - Required. The unique identifier you obtained when you registered your application with Zendesk. See the section above.
• scope - Required. A space-separated list of scopes that control access to the Zendesk resources. You can request read, write, or impersonate access to all resources or to specific resources. See Setting the scope.
• state - An arbitrary string included in the response from Zendesk after the user decides whether or not to grant access. You can use the parameter to guard against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks. In a CSRF attack, the end user is tricked into clicking a link that performs an action in a web application where the end user is still authenticated. To guard against this kind of attack, add some value to the state parameter and validate it when it comes back.
• code_challenge - Required if using PKCE. A string representing a code challenge derived from a code verifier. See Generating the code_challenge value in the developer documentation.
• code_challenge_method - Required if using PKCE. The method used to derive the code challenge. Specify "S256" as the value.

Make sure to URL-encode the parameters.

Example GET request

https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/authorizations/new?response_type=code&redirect_uri={your_redirect_url}&client_id={your_unique_identifier}&scope=read%20write

The Zendesk authorization page opens in the end user's browser. After the user makes a decision, Zendesk sends the decision to the redirect URL you specified in the request.

Setting the scope

You must specify a scope to control the app's access to Zendesk resources. The  read  scope gives an app access to GET endpoints. It includes permission to sideload related resources. The  write  scope gives an app access to POST, PUT, and DELETE endpoints for creating, updating, and deleting resources.

For more on the scope, see OAuth Tokens for Grant Types.

The impersonate scope allows a Zendesk admin to make requests on behalf of end users. See Making API requests on behalf of end users.

For example, the following parameter gives an app read access to all resources:

"scope": "read"

The following parameter gives read and write access to all resources:

"scope": "read write"

You can fine-tune the scope to the following resources:

• tickets
• users
• auditlogs (read only)
• organizations
• hc
• apps
• triggers
• automations
• targets
• webhooks
• zis

The syntax is as follows:

"scope": "resource:scope"

For example, the following parameter restricts an app to only reading tickets:

"scope": "tickets:read"

To give an app read and write access to a resource, specify both scopes:

"scope": "users:read users:write"

To give an app write access only to one resource, such as organizations, and read access to everything else:

"scope": "organizations:write read"

Step 2 - Handle the user's authorization decision

Your application has to handle the response from Zendesk telling it what the user decided. The information is contained in URL parameters in the redirect URL.

If the user decided to grant access to the application, the redirect URL contains an authorization code. Example:

{redirect_url}?code=7xqwtlf3rrdj8uyeb1yf

The authorization code is only valid for 120 seconds.

If the user decided not to grant access to the application, the redirect URL contains error and error_description parameters that inform the app that the user denied access:

{redirect_url}?error=access_denied&error_description=The+end-user+or+authorization+server+denied+the+request

Use these values to control the flow of your application. If the URL contains a code parameter, get an access token from Zendesk as described in the following section. This is the token to include in API calls to Zendesk.

Step 3 - Get an access token from Zendesk

If your application received an authorization code from Zendesk in response to the user granting access, your application can exchange it for an access token. To get the access token, make a POST request to the following endpoint:

https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/tokens

Note: Don't confuse this endpoint with the Create Token endpoint in the OAuth Tokens API. Though both endpoints return valid OAuth access tokens, the endpoints don't share the same path, JSON format, or request parameters.

Include the following required parameters in the request:

• grant_type - Specify "authorization_code" as the value.
• code - Use the authorization code you received from Zendesk after the user granted access.
• client_id - Use the unique identifier specified in an OAuth client in the Support admin interface (Admin > Channels > API > OAuth Clients). See Registering your application with Zendesk.
• client_secret - Use the secret specified in an OAuth client in the Support admin interface (Admin > Channels > API > OAuth Clients). See Registering your application with Zendesk.

  If you use the PKCE code_challenge and code_verifier parameters, client_secret is not required. You can use this characteristic to migrate from the implicit grant flow, which is no longer recommended because of security concerns. See Using PKCE to migrate from the implicit grant flow in the developer documentation.

• redirect_uri - The same redirect URL as in step 1. For ID purposes only.
• scope - See Setting the scope.
• code_verifier - Required if using PKCE. The string used to generate the code_challenge value. See Generating the code_challenge value in the developer documentation.
• expires_in - Optional. Number of seconds the access token is valid. See OAuth Tokens for Grant Types.
• refresh_token_expires_in - Optional. Number of seconds the refresh token is valid. See OAuth Tokens for Grant Types.

The request must be over https and the properties must be formatted as JSON. If you use a custom or third-party application to make the API request, see its documentation for the proper format of property values.

Using curl

curl https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/oauth/tokens \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"grant_type": "authorization_code", "code": "{your_code}",
    "client_id": "{your_client_id}", "client_secret": "{your_client_secret}", 
    "redirect_uri": "{your_redirect_url}", "scope": "read" }' \
  -X POST

Example response

Status: 200 OK

{
  "access_token": "gErypPlm4dOVgGRvA1ZzMH5MQ3nLo8bo",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "scope":"read"
}

Step 4 - Use the access token in API calls

The app can use the access token to make API calls. Include the token in an HTTP Authorization header with the request, as follows:

Authorization: Bearer {a_valid_access_token}

For example, a curl request to list tickets would look as follows:

curl https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets.json \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer gErypPlm4dOVgGRvA1ZzMH5MQ3nLo8bo"