OAuth 2 (client credentials)

Introduction

The OAuth 2 client credentials flow allows client applications (i.e. Patchworks) to authenticate and obtain access to resources, without involving specific user intervention.

How it works

The exact mechanism used for client credentials authentication depends on the implementation of the authorisation server for the system in question, but a common mechanism is client secret.

This is where a client application (in this case, Patchworks) authenticates itself by sending its unique client identifier and client secret to the authorisation server, and receives a token in response.

If you'd like more detailed information about how OAuth 2 client credentials authentication works, there's some great background information on the Postman website.

OAuth 2 (client credentials) authentication examples

It can be useful to compare how existing connectors have been configured for OAuth 2 (client credentials) authentication. The Patchworks marketplace includes many connectors that are configured to use this authentication type - a few examples are linked below: