ClientApplication Class
You do not usually directly use this class. Use its subclasses instead: PublicClientApplication and ConfidentialClientApplication.
Create an instance of application.
- Inheritance
-
builtins.objectClientApplication
Constructor
ClientApplication(client_id, client_credential=None, authority=None, validate_authority=True, token_cache=None, http_client=None, verify=True, proxies=None, timeout=None, client_claims=None, app_name=None, app_version=None, client_capabilities=None, azure_region=None, exclude_scopes=None, http_cache=None, instance_discovery=None, allow_broker=None, enable_pii_log=None, oidc_authority=None)Parameters
- client_id
- str
Your app has a client_id after you register it on Microsoft Entra admin center.
For PublicClientApplication, you use None here. For ConfidentialClientApplication, it can be a string containing client secret, or an X509 certificate container in this form:
{
"private_key": "...-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----... in PEM format",
"thumbprint": "A1B2C3D4E5F6...",
"public_certificate": "...-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----... (Optional. See below.)",
"passphrase": "Passphrase if the private_key is encrypted (Optional. Added in version 1.6.0)",
}
MSAL Python requires a "private_key" in PEM format. If your cert is in a PKCS12 (.pfx) format, you can also convert it to PEM and get the thumbprint.
The thumbprint is available in your app's registration in Azure Portal. Alternatively, you can calculate the thumbprint.
Added in version 0.5.0: public_certificate (optional) is public key certificate which will be sent through 'x5c' JWT header only for subject name and issuer authentication to support cert auto rolls.
Per specs, "the certificate containing the public key corresponding to the key used to digitally sign the JWS MUST be the first certificate. This MAY be followed by additional certificates, with each subsequent certificate being the one used to certify the previous one." However, your certificate's issuer may use a different order. So, if your attempt ends up with an error AADSTS700027 - "The provided signature value did not match the expected signature value", you may try use only the leaf cert (in PEM/str format) instead.
Added in version 1.13.0: It can also be a completely pre-signed assertion that you've assembled yourself. Simply pass a container containing only the key "client_assertion", like this:
{
"client_assertion": "...a JWT with claims aud, exp, iss, jti, nbf, and sub..."
}
- client_claims
- dict
Added in version 0.5.0: It is a dictionary of extra claims that would be signed by by this ConfidentialClientApplication 's private key. For example, you can use {"client_ip": "x.x.x.x"}. You may also override any of the following default claims:
{
"aud": the_token_endpoint,
"iss": self.client_id,
"sub": same_as_issuer,
"exp": now + 10_min,
"iat": now,
"jti": a_random_uuid
}
- authority
- str
A URL that identifies a token authority. It should be of the format
https://login.microsoftonline.com/your_tenant
By default, we will use https://login.microsoftonline.com/common
Changed in version 1.17: you can also use predefined constant and a builder like this:
from msal.authority import (
AuthorityBuilder,
AZURE_US_GOVERNMENT, AZURE_CHINA, AZURE_PUBLIC)
my_authority = AuthorityBuilder(AZURE_PUBLIC, "contoso.onmicrosoft.com")
# Now you get an equivalent of
# "https://login.microsoftonline.com/contoso.onmicrosoft.com"
# You can feed such an authority to msal's ClientApplication
from msal import PublicClientApplication
app = PublicClientApplication("my_client_id", authority=my_authority, ...)
- validate_authority
- bool
(optional) Turns authority validation on or off. This parameter default to true.
- token_cache
- TokenCache
Sets the token cache used by this ClientApplication instance. By default, an in-memory cache will be created and used.
- http_client
(optional) Your implementation of abstract class HttpClient <msal.oauth2cli.http.http_client> Defaults to a requests session instance. Since MSAL 1.11.0, the default session would be configured to attempt one retry on connection error. If you are providing your own http_client, it will be your http_client's duty to decide whether to perform retry.
- verify
(optional) It will be passed to the verify parameter in the underlying requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
- proxies
(optional) It will be passed to the proxies parameter in the underlying requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
- timeout
(optional) It will be passed to the timeout parameter in the underlying requests library This does not apply if you have chosen to pass your own Http client
- app_name
(optional) You can provide your application name for Microsoft telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to Microsoft.
- app_version
(optional) You can provide your application version for Microsoft telemetry purposes. Default value is None, means it will not be passed to Microsoft.
(optional) Allows configuration of one or more client capabilities, e.g. ["CP1"].
Client capability is meant to inform the Microsoft identity platform (STS) what this client is capable for, so STS can decide to turn on certain features. For example, if client is capable to handle claims challenge, STS can then issue CAE access tokens to resources knowing when the resource emits claims challenge the client will be capable to handle.
Implementation details: Client capability is implemented using "claims" parameter on the wire, for now. MSAL will combine them into claims parameter which you will later provide via one of the acquire-token request.
- azure_region
- str
(optional)
Instructs MSAL to use the Entra regional token service. This legacy feature is only available to
first-party applications. Only acquire_token_for_client() is supported.
Supports 3 values:
azure_region=None - meaning no region is used. This is the default value.
azure_region="some_region" - meaning the specified region is used.
azure_region=True - meaning MSAL will try to auto-detect the region. This is not recommended.
Note
Region auto-discovery has been tested on VMs and on Azure Functions. It is unreliable.
Applications using this option should configure a short timeout.
For more details and for the values of the region string
see https://learn.microsoft.com/entra/msal/dotnet/resources/region-discovery-troubleshooting
New in version 1.12.0.
(optional)
Historically MSAL hardcodes offline_access scope,
which would allow your app to have prolonged access to user's data.
If that is unnecessary or undesirable for your app,
now you can use this parameter to supply an exclusion list of scopes,
such as exclude_scopes = ["offline_access"].
- http_cache
- dict
MSAL has long been caching tokens in the token_cache.
Recently, MSAL also introduced a concept of http_cache,
by automatically caching some finite amount of non-token http responses,
so that long-lived
PublicClientApplication and ConfidentialClientApplication
would be more performant and responsive in some situations.
This http_cache parameter accepts any dict-like object.
If not provided, MSAL will use an in-memory dict.
If your app is a command-line app (CLI), you would want to persist your http_cache across different CLI runs. The following recipe shows a way to do so:
# Just add the following lines at the beginning of your CLI script
import sys, atexit, pickle
http_cache_filename = sys.argv[0] + ".http_cache"
try:
with open(http_cache_filename, "rb") as f:
persisted_http_cache = pickle.load(f) # Take a snapshot
except (
FileNotFoundError, # Or IOError in Python 2
pickle.UnpicklingError, # A corrupted http cache file
):
persisted_http_cache = {} # Recover by starting afresh
atexit.register(lambda: pickle.dump(
# When exit, flush it back to the file.
# It may occasionally overwrite another process's concurrent write,
# but that is fine. Subsequent runs will reach eventual consistency.
persisted_http_cache, open(http_cache_file, "wb")))
# And then you can implement your app as you normally would
app = msal.PublicClientApplication(
"your_client_id",
...,
http_cache=persisted_http_cache, # Utilize persisted_http_cache
...,
#token_cache=..., # You may combine the old token_cache trick
# Please refer to token_cache recipe at
# https://msal-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#msal.SerializableTokenCache
)
app.acquire_token_interactive(["your", "scope"], ...)
Content inside http_cache are cheap to obtain.
There is no need to share them among different apps.
Content inside http_cache will contain no tokens nor
Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Encryption is unnecessary.
New in version 1.16.0.
- instance_discovery
- <xref:boolean>
Historically, MSAL would connect to a central endpoint located at
https://login.microsoftonline.com to acquire some metadata,
especially when using an unfamiliar authority.
This behavior is known as Instance Discovery.
This parameter defaults to None, which enables the Instance Discovery.
If you know some authorities which you allow MSAL to operate with as-is, without involving any Instance Discovery, the recommended pattern is:
known_authorities = frozenset([ # Treat your known authorities as const
"https://contoso.com/adfs", "https://login.azs/foo"])
...
authority = "https://contoso.com/adfs" # Assuming your app will use this
app1 = PublicClientApplication(
"client_id",
authority=authority,
# Conditionally disable Instance Discovery for known authorities
instance_discovery=authority not in known_authorities,
)
If you do not know some authorities beforehand,
yet still want MSAL to accept any authority that you will provide,
you can use a False to unconditionally disable Instance Discovery.
New in version 1.19.0.
- allow_broker
- <xref:boolean>
Deprecated. Please use enable_broker_on_windows instead.
- enable_pii_log
- <xref:boolean>
When enabled, logs may include PII (Personal Identifiable Information). This can be useful in troubleshooting broker behaviors. The default behavior is False.
New in version 1.24.0.
- oidc_authority
- str
Added in version 1.28.0:
It is a URL that identifies an OpenID Connect (OIDC) authority of
the format https://contoso.com/tenant.
MSAL will append ".well-known/openid-configuration" to the authority
and retrieve the OIDC metadata from there, to figure out the endpoints.
Note: Broker will NOT be used for OIDC authority.
Methods
| acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow |
Validate the auth response being redirected back, and obtain tokens. It automatically provides nonce protection. |
| acquire_token_by_authorization_code |
The second half of the Authorization Code Grant. |
| acquire_token_by_refresh_token |
Acquire token(s) based on a refresh token (RT) obtained from elsewhere. You use this method only when you have old RTs from elsewhere, and now you want to migrate them into MSAL. Calling this method results in new tokens automatically storing into MSAL. You do NOT need to use this method if you are already using MSAL. MSAL maintains RT automatically inside its token cache, and an access token can be retrieved when you call acquire_token_silent. |
| acquire_token_by_username_password |
Gets a token for a given resource via user credentials. See this page for constraints of Username Password Flow. https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-python/wiki/Username-Password-Authentication |
| acquire_token_silent |
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction. It has same parameters as the acquire_token_silent_with_error. The difference is the behavior of the return value. This method will combine the cache empty and refresh error into one return value, None. If your app does not care about the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is easier and recommended. |
| acquire_token_silent_with_error |
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction. It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token. This method will differentiate cache empty from token refresh error. If your app cares the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is suitable. Otherwise, the other method acquire_token_silent is recommended. |
| get_accounts |
Get a list of accounts which previously signed in, i.e. exists in cache. An account can later be used in acquire_token_silent to find its tokens. |
| get_authorization_request_url |
Constructs a URL for you to start a Authorization Code Grant. |
| initiate_auth_code_flow |
Initiate an auth code flow. Later when the response reaches your redirect_uri, you can use acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow to complete the authentication/authorization. |
| is_pop_supported |
Returns True if this client supports Proof-of-Possession Access Token. |
| remove_account |
Sign me out and forget me from token cache |
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow
Validate the auth response being redirected back, and obtain tokens.
It automatically provides nonce protection.
acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow(auth_code_flow, auth_response, scopes=None, **kwargs)Parameters
Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
Most of the time, you can leave it empty.
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will need to provide a subset of what you required in initiate_auth_code_flow.
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In Microsoft Entra, tokens can be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
Returns
A dict containing "access_token" and/or "id_token", among others, depends on what scope was used. (See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749#section-5.1)
A dict containing "error", optionally "error_description", "error_uri". (It is either this or that)
Most client-side data error would result in ValueError exception. So the usage pattern could be without any protocol details:
def authorize(): # A controller in a web app try: result = msal_app.acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow( session.get("flow", {}), request.args) if "error" in result: return render_template("error.html", result) use(result) # Token(s) are available in result and cache except ValueError: # Usually caused by CSRF pass # Simply ignore them return redirect(url_for("index"))
acquire_token_by_authorization_code
The second half of the Authorization Code Grant.
acquire_token_by_authorization_code(code, scopes, redirect_uri=None, nonce=None, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)Parameters
- code
The authorization code returned from Authorization Server.
(Required) Scopes requested to access a protected API (a resource).
If you requested user consent for multiple resources, here you will typically want to provide a subset of what you required in AuthCode.
OAuth2 was designed mostly for singleton services, where tokens are always meant for the same resource and the only changes are in the scopes. In Microsoft Entra, tokens can be issued for multiple 3rd party resources. You can ask authorization code for multiple resources, but when you redeem it, the token is for only one intended recipient, called audience. So the developer need to specify a scope so that we can restrict the token to be issued for the corresponding audience.
- nonce
If you provided a nonce when calling get_authorization_request_url, same nonce should also be provided here, so that we'll validate it. An exception will be raised if the nonce in id token mismatches.
- claims_challenge
The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists of claims being requested from these locations.
- redirect_uri
Returns
A dict representing the json response from Microsoft Entra:
A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_by_refresh_token
Acquire token(s) based on a refresh token (RT) obtained from elsewhere.
You use this method only when you have old RTs from elsewhere, and now you want to migrate them into MSAL. Calling this method results in new tokens automatically storing into MSAL.
You do NOT need to use this method if you are already using MSAL. MSAL maintains RT automatically inside its token cache, and an access token can be retrieved when you call acquire_token_silent.
acquire_token_by_refresh_token(refresh_token, scopes, **kwargs)Parameters
- scopes
- list
The scopes associate with this old RT. Each scope needs to be in the Microsoft identity platform (v2) format. See Scopes not resources.
Returns
A dict contains "error" and some other keys, when error happened.
A dict contains no "error" key means migration was successful.
acquire_token_by_username_password
Gets a token for a given resource via user credentials.
See this page for constraints of Username Password Flow. https://github.com/AzureAD/microsoft-authentication-library-for-python/wiki/Username-Password-Authentication
acquire_token_by_username_password(username, password, scopes, claims_challenge=None, auth_scheme=None, **kwargs)Parameters
- claims_challenge
The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists of claims being requested from these locations.
- auth_scheme
- object
You can provide an msal.auth_scheme.PopAuthScheme object
so that MSAL will get a Proof-of-Possession (POP) token for you.
New in version 1.26.0.
Returns
A dict representing the json response from Microsoft Entra:
A successful response would contain "access_token" key,
an error response would contain "error" and usually "error_description".
acquire_token_silent
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It has same parameters as the acquire_token_silent_with_error. The difference is the behavior of the return value. This method will combine the cache empty and refresh error into one return value, None. If your app does not care about the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is easier and recommended.
acquire_token_silent(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False, claims_challenge=None, auth_scheme=None, **kwargs)Parameters
- scopes
- account
- authority
- force_refresh
- claims_challenge
- auth_scheme
Returns
A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if cache lookup succeeded.
None when cache lookup does not yield a token.
acquire_token_silent_with_error
Acquire an access token for given account, without user interaction.
It is done either by finding a valid access token from cache, or by finding a valid refresh token from cache and then automatically use it to redeem a new access token.
This method will differentiate cache empty from token refresh error. If your app cares the exact token refresh error during token cache look-up, then this method is suitable. Otherwise, the other method acquire_token_silent is recommended.
acquire_token_silent_with_error(scopes, account, authority=None, force_refresh=False, claims_challenge=None, auth_scheme=None, **kwargs)Parameters
- account
(Required)
One of the account object returned by get_accounts.
Starting from MSAL Python 1.23,
a None input will become a NO-OP and always return None.
- force_refresh
If True, it will skip Access Token look-up, and try to find a Refresh Token to obtain a new Access Token.
- claims_challenge
The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists of claims being requested from these locations.
- auth_scheme
- object
You can provide an msal.auth_scheme.PopAuthScheme object
so that MSAL will get a Proof-of-Possession (POP) token for you.
New in version 1.26.0.
- authority
Returns
A dict containing no "error" key, and typically contains an "access_token" key, if cache lookup succeeded.
None when there is simply no token in the cache.
A dict containing an "error" key, when token refresh failed.
get_accounts
Get a list of accounts which previously signed in, i.e. exists in cache.
An account can later be used in acquire_token_silent to find its tokens.
get_accounts(username=None)Parameters
- username
Filter accounts with this username only. Case insensitive.
Returns
A list of account objects. Each account is a dict. For now, we only document its "username" field. Your app can choose to display those information to end user, and allow user to choose one of his/her accounts to proceed.
get_authorization_request_url
Constructs a URL for you to start a Authorization Code Grant.
get_authorization_request_url(scopes, login_hint=None, state=None, redirect_uri=None, response_type='code', prompt=None, nonce=None, domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, **kwargs)Parameters
- redirect_uri
- str
Address to return to upon receiving a response from the authority.
- response_type
- str
Default value is "code" for an OAuth2 Authorization Code grant.
You could use other content such as "id_token" or "token", which would trigger an Implicit Grant, but that is not recommended.
- prompt
- str
By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even string "none".
You will have to specify a value explicitly.
Its valid values are the constants defined in
<xref:msal.Prompt>.
- nonce
A cryptographically random value used to mitigate replay attacks. See also OIDC specs.
- domain_hint
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com". If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More information on possible values available in Auth Code Flow doc and domain_hint doc.
- claims_challenge
The claims_challenge parameter requests specific claims requested by the resource provider in the form of a claims_challenge directive in the www-authenticate header to be returned from the UserInfo Endpoint and/or in the ID Token and/or Access Token. It is a string of a JSON object which contains lists of claims being requested from these locations.
Returns
The authorization url as a string.
initiate_auth_code_flow
Initiate an auth code flow.
Later when the response reaches your redirect_uri, you can use acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow to complete the authentication/authorization.
initiate_auth_code_flow(scopes, redirect_uri=None, state=None, prompt=None, login_hint=None, domain_hint=None, claims_challenge=None, max_age=None, response_mode=None)Parameters
- redirect_uri
- str
Optional. If not specified, server will use the pre-registered one.
- state
- str
An opaque value used by the client to maintain state between the request and callback. If absent, this library will automatically generate one internally.
- prompt
- str
By default, no prompt value will be sent, not even string "none".
You will have to specify a value explicitly.
Its valid values are the constants defined in
<xref:msal.Prompt>.
- login_hint
- str
Optional. Identifier of the user. Generally a User Principal Name (UPN).
- domain_hint
Can be one of "consumers" or "organizations" or your tenant domain "contoso.com". If included, it will skip the email-based discovery process that user goes through on the sign-in page, leading to a slightly more streamlined user experience. More information on possible values available in Auth Code Flow doc and domain_hint doc.
- max_age
- int
OPTIONAL. Maximum Authentication Age. Specifies the allowable elapsed time in seconds since the last time the End-User was actively authenticated. If the elapsed time is greater than this value, Microsoft identity platform will actively re-authenticate the End-User.
MSAL Python will also automatically validate the auth_time in ID token.
New in version 1.15.
- response_mode
- str
OPTIONAL. Specifies the method with which response parameters should be returned.
The default value is equivalent to query, which is still secure enough in MSAL Python
(because MSAL Python does not transfer tokens via query parameter in the first place).
For even better security, we recommend using the value form_post.
In "form_post" mode, response parameters
will be encoded as HTML form values that are transmitted via the HTTP POST method and
encoded in the body using the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format.
Valid values can be either "form_post" for HTTP POST to callback URI or
"query" (the default) for HTTP GET with parameters encoded in query string.
More information on possible values
here https://openid.net/specs/oauth-v2-multiple-response-types-1_0.html#ResponseModes
and here https://openid.net/specs/oauth-v2-form-post-response-mode-1_0.html#FormPostResponseMode
- claims_challenge
Returns
The auth code flow. It is a dict in this form:
{
"auth_uri": "https://...", // Guide user to visit this
"state": "...", // You may choose to verify it by yourself,
// or just let acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow()
// do that for you.
"...": "...", // Everything else are reserved and internal
}
The caller is expected to:
somehow store this content, typically inside the current session,
guide the end user (i.e. resource owner) to visit that auth_uri,
and then relay this dict and subsequent auth response to acquire_token_by_auth_code_flow.
is_pop_supported
Returns True if this client supports Proof-of-Possession Access Token.
is_pop_supported()remove_account
Sign me out and forget me from token cache
remove_account(account)Parameters
- account
Attributes
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_AUTHORIZATION_CODE_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_AUTHORIZATION_CODE_ID = '832'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_DEVICE_FLOW_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_DEVICE_FLOW_ID = '622'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_REFRESH_TOKEN
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_REFRESH_TOKEN = '85'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_USERNAME_PASSWORD_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_BY_USERNAME_PASSWORD_ID = '301'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_FOR_CLIENT_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_FOR_CLIENT_ID = '730'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_INTERACTIVE
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_INTERACTIVE = '169'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_ON_BEHALF_OF_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_ON_BEHALF_OF_ID = '523'ACQUIRE_TOKEN_SILENT_ID
ACQUIRE_TOKEN_SILENT_ID = '84'ATTEMPT_REGION_DISCOVERY
ATTEMPT_REGION_DISCOVERY = TrueGET_ACCOUNTS_ID
GET_ACCOUNTS_ID = '902'REMOVE_ACCOUNT_ID
REMOVE_ACCOUNT_ID = '903'Feedback
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