Unleash uses API keys to facilitate communication between consuming clients such as SDKs, Unleash Edge, or other tools and automation.
Unleash supports the following types of API tokens:
To connect a frontend SDK to Unleash using Unleash Edge, you need both a backend and frontend token. See Connect a frontend SDK to Unleash using Edge for an example.
Backend tokens are intended for use in backend SDKs or Unleash Edge to grant the permissions to:
Backend tokens are scoped to one or more projects and a single environment. When creating a backend token, you can give it access to a specific list of projects or to all current or future projects. Backend tokens are secrets and must not be exposed to end users.
Backend tokens cannot be used in frontend SDKs; use frontend tokens instead.
Use frontend tokens for connecting frontend SDKs to Unleash using the Unleash Frontend API or Unleash Edge. They grant the user permission to:
Frontend tokens are scoped to one or more projects and a single environment. When creating a frontend token, you can give it access to a specific list of projects or to all current or future projects. Frontend tokens are not considered secret and are safe to expose client-side.
Frontend tokens cannot be used in backend SDKs; use backend tokens instead.
Personal access tokens reflect the permissions of the user who creates them. If the user’s permissions change, such as through the addition of a custom role, the token automatically updates to match the new permissions. You can use personal access tokens for testing, debugging, or giving temporary access to automation tools.
When you use a personal access token to modify resources, the events record the token creator’s name for that operation.
Personal access tokens with a lifetime expire and stop working after their expiration date. Although you can set the token to not expire, we recommend using tokens with expiration dates to follow security best practices.
Personal access tokens are not suitable for use in SDKs, as they are not bound to an environment, they may expire, or their permissions may change.
Service account tokens provide API access to integration and automation tools. To learn more, go to Service Accounts.
Admin tokens are deprecated. Use other token types:
Admin tokens grant full read and write access to all resources in the Unleash server API. This includes all projects, all environments, and all root resources.
The following table provides a summary of what actions different roles can perform with API tokens:
API tokens consist of three parts:
The parts are separated by two delimiters: a colon (:) between the projects and the environment, and a period (.) between the environment and the hash.
The project value of the token can be one of:
default: when the token can only access a single project.[]: when the token is valid for a specific set of projects. The list of projects is not shown in the token.*: when the token is valid for all current and future projects.The environment value of the token is the name of an environment on your Unleash instance, such as development. The hash is a 64-character-long hexadecimal string.
Personal access tokens start with the string user, and do not contain additional project or environment information.
Some example API tokens are:
development environment of a single project, new-checkout-flow:
production environment in multiple projects:
development environment in all current and future projects:
Note, in Unleash v4.3 or less, API tokens are a 64-character-long hexadecimal string with no additional information. For example:
Depending on your permissions, you can create API tokens in the Unleash Admin UI in four ways:
To connect a frontend SDK to Unleash using Unleash Edge, you need both a backend and frontend token:
Ensure that the backend token has at least the same project and environment scope as the frontend token.
Unleash Proxy is in maintenance mode. Use Unleash Edge instead.
You can use proxy client keys to connect frontend SDKs to Unleash Proxy. Proxy client keys are not considered a secret and are safe to expose client-side.
Proxy client keys are arbitrary strings that you provide the Unleash proxy with on startup. They can be any string you choose, and you create them yourself.
Creating proxy client keys
To designate a string as a proxy client key, add it to the clientKeys list when starting the proxy. Connecting clients should then specify the same string as their client key.
Proxy client keys cannot be used to connect to the Unleash API; use API tokens instead.