Authentication

Read this section in the Basic Usage chapter first for the basics on authentication support.

Basic concepts on the authentication support:

• APIFlask uses Flask-HTTPAuth to implement the authentication support.
• Use apiflask.HTTPBasicAuth for the HTTP Basic authentication.
• Use apiflask.HTTPTokenAuth for the HTTP Bearer authentication.
• Use apiflask.APIKeyHeaderAuthapiflask.APIKeyCookieAuthapiflask.APIKeyQueryAuth for the API Keys authentication.
• Use apiflask.MultiAuth for protecting a route with more than one authentication object.
• Read Flask-HTTPAuth's documentation for the implemention of each authentication types.
• Make sure to import HTTPBasicAuth and HTTPTokenAuth from APIFlask and use the app.auth_required decorator to protect the views.
• auth.current_user works just like auth.current_user(), but shorter.

Warning

Cookie authentication is currently not supported for “try it out” requests due to browser security restrictions in Swagger UI. See this issue for more information.

Use external authentication library

Version >= 1.0.0

This feature was added in the version 1.0.0.

When using the HTTPBasicAuth, HTTPTokenAuth, and app.auth_required to implement the authentication, APIFlask can generate the OpenAPI security spec automatically. When you use the external authentication library, APIFlask still offers the way to set the OpenAPI spec.

You can use the SECURITY_SCHEMES config or the app.security_schemes attribute to set the OpenAPI security schemes:

app = APIFlask(__name__)
app.security_schemes = {  # equals to use config SECURITY_SCHEMES
    'ApiKeyAuth': {
      'type': 'apiKey',
      'in': 'header',
      'name': 'X-API-Key',
    }
}

Then you can set the security scheme with the security parameter in app.doc() decorator:

@app.post('/pets')
@my_auth_lib.protect  # protect the view with the decorator provided by external authentication library
@app.input(PetIn)
@app.output(PetOut, status_code=201)
@app.doc(security='ApiKeyAuth')
def create_pet(json_data):
    pet_id = len(pets)
    data['id'] = pet_id
    pets.append(json_data)
    return pets[pet_id]

With APIFlask 1.0.2, when using the built-in auth support and external auth library at the same time, the security schemes will be combined.

app.auth_required will generate the operation security automatically, if you use the @doc(security=...) with a view that already used app.auth_required, then the value passed in @doc(security=...) will be used.

Handle authentication errors

See this section in the Error Handling chapter for handling authentication errors.