Authentication

📘 Note

All applications submitted to the Onshape App Store (Onshape Apps) must follow the instructions on the OAuth2 page and use OAuth2 for authorization. Automation scripts (or applications not meant for the Onshape App Store) may use either OAuth2 or API Keys for authentication. OAuth2 allows applications to call Onshape APIs on behalf of the users of the application; API keys will only perform operations on behalf of the Onshape user who generated the API keys.

We’ve structured API keys to work very similarly to OAuth in the operation of your app. You must build your Authorization header differently (and set up redirects and sign-ins), but the API calls themselves work the same in both versions, provided that the API key and the OAuth app have the same scopes. An API key with the OAuth2Read and OAuth2Write scopes have the same access to the same API endpoints as an OAuth application with the OAuth2Read and OAuth2Write scopes. The only differences are when calling API endpoints in relation to the OAuth application itself, since an API key request does not come from an OAuth application.

Please select an option for authentication:

• API Keys
• OAuth2