Confluence OAuth 2.0 provider API

Confluence Data Center provides APIs to allow external services to access resources on a user’s behalf with the OAuth 2.0 protocol.

If you already have an integration that you’d like to add to Confluence, see Configure an incoming link for detailed steps. If not, this page will help you understand the details of our OAuth 2.0 implementation so you can create such an integration.

Supported OAuth 2.0 flows

We support the following OAuth 2.0 flows:

• Authorization code with Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE)
• Authorization code

We don’t support Implicit Grant and Resource Owner Password Credentials flows, as they will be deprecated in the next OAuth specification version.

For more information on how these flows work, see OAuth RFC. This should help you understand the flows and choose the right one for you.

Security recommendations

Here are some recommendations on how to improve security:

Preventing CSRF attacks

To protect redirect-based flows, the OAuth specification recommends the use of “One-time use CSRF tokens carried in the state parameter, which are securely bound to the user agent” using the state query parameter, with each request to the /rest/oauth2/latest/authorize endpoint. This can prevent CSRF attacks.

Using HTTPS in production

For production environments, use HTTPS for the redirect_uri. This is important, as OAuth 2.0 bases its security on the transport layer. For more info, see the OAuth 2.0 RFC and the OAuth 2.0 Threat Model RFC.

For the same reason, we also enforce HTTPS for the base URL of production environments. You can use insecure URIs and base URLs for staging or development environments by enabling the relevant system properties.

Authorization code with Proof Key for Code Exchange (PKCE)

This flow lets you securely perform the OAuth exchange of client credentials for access tokens on public clients.

Parameters

Here are parameters you’ll use in this flow:

Before you begin

• Register your application in Confluence by creating an incoming link in application links. During registration, you can enable proper scopes to limit the range of resources which the application can access. After creating the link, you should receive the OAuth credentials: Client ID and Client secret - keep them secure. For more info, see Configure an incoming link.
• Before starting the flow, generate the state (optional), code_verifier, code_challenge, and code_challenge_method.

Steps

1. Request authorization code by redirecting the user to the /rest/oauth2/latest/authorize page with the following query parameters:

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curl https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/authorize?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code&state=STATE&scope=SCOPE&code_challenge=CODE_CHALLENGE&code_challenge_method=S256

This is the consent screen that asks the user to approve the application’s request to access their account with the scopes specified in scope. The user is then redirected to the URL specified in redirect_uri. The redirect includes the authorization code, like in the following example:

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https://atlassian.example.com/plugins/servlet/oauth2/consent?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code&scope=SCOPE&state=STATE&code_challenge_method=CODE_CHALLENGE_METHOD&code_challenge=CODE_CHALLENGE

2. With the authorization code returned from the previous request, you can request an access_token, with any HTTP client. The following example uses curl:

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curl -X POST https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/token?client_id=CLIENT_ID&client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET&code=CODE&grant_type=authorization_code&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&code_verifier=CODE_VERIFIER

Example resource

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{
 "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjNmMTQ3NTUzYjg3OTQ2Y2FhMWJhYWJkZWQ0MzgwYTM4In0.EDnpBl0hd1BQzIRP--xEvyW1F6gDuiFranQCvi98b2c",
 "token_type": "bearer",
 "expires_in": 7200,
 "refresh_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImMwZTMxYmZjYTI2NWI0YTkwMzBiOGM2OTJjNWIyMTYwIn0.grHOsso3B3kaSxNd0QJfj1H3ayjRUuA75SiEt0usmiM",
 "created_at": 1607635748
}

3. To retrieve a new access_token, use the refresh_token parameter. Refresh tokens may be used even after the access_token itself expires. The following request:

• Invalidates the existing access_token and refresh_token.
• Sends new tokens in the response

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curl -X POST https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/token?client_id=CLIENT_ID&client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET&refresh_token=REFRESH_TOKEN&grant_type=refresh_token&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI

Example response

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{
  "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImJmZjg4MzU5YTVkNGUyZmQ3ZmYwOTEwOGIxNjg4MDA0In0.BocpI91mpUzWskyjxHp57hnyl8ZcHehGJwmaBsGJEMg",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 7200,
  "refresh_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ijg1NjQ1YjA1NGJiYmZkNjVmMDNkMzliYzM0YzQ4MzZjIn0.4MSMIG46zjB9QCV-qCCglgojM5dL7_E2kcqmiV46YQ4",
  "created_at": 1628711391
}

You can now make requests to the API with the access token. For more info, see Access Confluence API with access token below.

Authorization code

This flow lets you securely perform the OAuth exchange of client credentials for access tokens on public clients.

Parameters

Here are parameters you’ll use in this flow:

Before you begin

• Register your application in Confluence by creating an incoming link in application links. During registration, you can enable proper scopes to limit the range of resources which the application can access. After creating the link, you should receive the OAuth credentials: Client ID and Client secret - keep them secure. For more info, see Configure an incoming link.
• If you want to use the optional state parameter, generate it before starting the flow.

Steps

1. Request the authorization code by redirecting the user to the /oauth/authorize page with the following query parameters:

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curl https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/authorize?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code&state=STATE&scope=SCOPE

This is the consent screen that asks the user to approve the application’s request to access their account with the scopes specified in scope. The user is then redirected to the URL specified in redirect_uri. The redirect includes the authorization code, like in the following example:

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https://atlassian.example.com/plugins/servlet/oauth2/consent?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code&scope=SCOPE&state=STATE

2. With the authorization code (response_type) returned from the previous request, you can request an access_token, with any HTTP client. The following example uses Ruby’s rest-client:

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curl -X POST https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/token?client_id=CLIENT_ID&client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET&code=CODE&grant_type=authorization_code&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI

Example response

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{
 "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjNmMTQ3NTUzYjg3OTQ2Y2FhMWJhYWJkZWQ0MzgwYTM4In0.EDnpBl0hd1BQzIRP--xEvyW1F6gDuiFranQCvi98b2c",
 "token_type": "bearer",
 "expires_in": 7200,
 "refresh_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImMwZTMxYmZjYTI2NWI0YTkwMzBiOGM2OTJjNWIyMTYwIn0.grHOsso3B3kaSxNd0QJfj1H3ayjRUuA75SiEt0usmiM",
 "created_at": 1607635748
}

3. To retrieve a new access_token, use the refresh_token parameter. Refresh tokens may be used even after the access_token itself expires. This request:

• Invalidates the existing access_token and refresh_token.
• Sends new tokens in the response.

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curl -X POST https://atlassian.example.com/rest/oauth2/latest/token?client_id=CLIENT_ID&client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET&refresh_token=REFRESH_TOKEN&grant_type=refresh_token&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI

Example response

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{
  "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImJmZjg4MzU5YTVkNGUyZmQ3ZmYwOTEwOGIxNjg4MDA0In0.BocpI91mpUzWskyjxHp57hnyl8ZcHehGJwmaBsGJEMg",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 7200,
  "refresh_token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ijg1NjQ1YjA1NGJiYmZkNjVmMDNkMzliYzM0YzQ4MzZjIn0.4MSMIG46zjB9QCV-qCCglgojM5dL7_E2kcqmiV46YQ4",
  "created_at": 1628711391
}

You can now make requests to the API with the access token returned. For more info, see Access Confluence API with access token below.

Access Confluence API with access token

The access token allows you to make requests to the API on behalf of a user. You can put the token in the Authorization header:

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curl --header "Authorization: Bearer OAUTH2-TOKEN" "http://atlassian.example.com/confluence/rest/api/content/"

Scopes

The scope parameter is required in both flows. It allows you to specify the permission scopes your application can request from the authorizing user. Note that regardless of which scopes you choose, the actual permissions will always be capped at what the user can actually do.

Here you can find the scope keys you can use in your requests, as values of the scope parameter: