Microsoft
Microsoft Graph
Microsoft
To use Microsoft Graph to read and write resources on behalf of a user, your app must get an access token from Azure AD and attach the token to requests that it sends to Microsoft Graph. The exact authentication flow that you will use to get access tokens will depend on the kind of app you are developing and whether you want to use OpenID Connect to sign the user in to your app. One common flow used by native and mobile apps and also by some Web apps is the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code Grant flow. In this topic, we will walk through an example using this flow.
The basic steps required to use the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code Grant flow to get an access token from the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint are:
To use the Azure v2.0 endpoint, you must register your app at the Microsoft App Registration Portal. You can use either a Microsoft account or a work or school account to register an app.
The following screenshot shows an example Web app registration.
To configure an app to use the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code Grant flow, you'll need to save the following values when registering the app:
For steps on how to configure an app using the Microsoft App Registration Portal, see Register your app.
The first step to getting an access token for many OpenID Connect and OAuth 2.0 flows is to redirect the user to the Azure AD v2.0 /authorize endpoint. Azure AD will sign the user in and ensure their consent for the permissions your app requests. In the Authorization Code Grant flow, after consent is obtained, Azure AD will return an authorization_code to your app that it can redeem at the Azure AD v2.0 /token endpoint for an access token.
The following shows an example request to the /authorize endpoint.
With the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint, permissions are requested using the scope parameter. In this example, the Microsoft Graph permissions requested are for User.Read and Mail.Read, which will allow the app to read the profile and mail of the signed-in user. The offline_access permission is requested so that the app can get a refresh token, which it can use to get a new access token when the current one expires.
// Line breaks for legibility only
https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant}/oauth2/v2.0/authorize?
client_id=6731de76-14a6-49ae-97bc-6eba6914391e
&response_type=code
&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%2Fmyapp%2F
&response_mode=query
&scope=offline_access%20user.read%20mail.read
&state=12345
| Parameter | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| tenant | required | The {tenant} value in the path of the request can be used to control who can sign into the application. The allowed values are common for both Microsoft accounts and work or school accounts, organizations for work or school accounts only, consumers for Microsoft accounts only, and tenant identifiers such as the tenant ID or domain name. For more detail, see protocol basics. |
| client_id | required | The Application Id that the registration portal (apps.dev.microsoft.com) assigned your app. |
| response_type | required | Must include code for the authorization code flow. |
| redirect_uri | recommended | The redirect_uri of your app, where authentication responses can be sent and received by your app. It must exactly match one of the redirect_uris you registered in the app registration portal, except it must be URL encoded. For native and mobile apps, you should use the default value of https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient. |
| scope | required | A space-separated list of the Microsoft Graph permissions that you want the user to consent to. This may also include OpenID scopes. |
| response_mode | recommended | Specifies the method that should be used to send the resulting token back to your app. Can be query or form_post. |
| state | recommended | A value included in the request that will also be returned in the token response. It can be a string of any content that you wish. A randomly generated unique value is typically used for preventing cross-site request forgery attacks. The state is also used to encode information about the user's state in the app before the authentication request occurred, such as the page or view they were on. |
Important: Microsoft Graph exposes two kinds of permissions: Application and Delegated. For apps that run with a signed-in user, you request Delegated permissions in the
scopeparameter. These permissions delegate the privileges of the signed-in user to your app, allowing it to act as the signed-in user when making calls to Microsoft Graph. For more detailed information about the permissions available through Microsoft Graph, see the Permissions reference.
At this point, the user will be asked to enter their credentials to authenticate with Azure AD. The v2.0 endpoint will also ensure that the user has consented to the permissions indicated in the scope query parameter. If the user has not consented to any of those permissions and if an administrator has not previously consented on behalf of all users in the organization, Azure AD will ask the user to consent to the required permissions.
Here is an example of the consent dialog presented for a Microsoft account:
Try If you have a Microsoft account or an Azure AD work or school account, you can try this for yourself by clicking on the link below. After signing in, your browser should be redirected to
https://localhost/myapp/with acodein the address bar.https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/v2.0/authorize...
If the user consents to the permissions your app requested, the response will contain the authorization code in the code parameter. Here is an example of a successful response to the request above. Because the response_mode parameter in the request was set to query, the response is returned in the query string of the redirect URL.
GET http://localhost/myapp/?
code=M0ab92efe-b6fd-df08-87dc-2c6500a7f84d
&state=12345
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| code | The authorization_code that the app requested. The app can use the authorization code to request an access token for the target resource. Authorization_codes are very short lived, typically they expire after about 10 minutes. |
| state | If a state parameter is included in the request, the same value should appear in the response. The app should verify that the state values in the request and response are identical. |
Your app uses the authorization code received in the previous step to request an access token by sending a POST request to the /token endpoint.
// Line breaks for legibility only
POST /common/oauth2/v2.0/token HTTP/1.1
Host: https://login.microsoftonline.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
client_id=6731de76-14a6-49ae-97bc-6eba6914391e
&scope=user.read%20mail.read
&code=OAAABAAAAiL9Kn2Z27UubvWFPbm0gLWQJVzCTE9UkP3pSx1aXxUjq3n8b2JRLk4OxVXr...
&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%2Fmyapp%2F
&grant_type=authorization_code
&client_secret=JqQX2PNo9bpM0uEihUPzyrh // NOTE: Only required for web apps
| Parameter | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| tenant | required | The {tenant} value in the path of the request can be used to control who can sign into the application. The allowed values are common for both Microsoft accounts and work or school accounts, organizations for work or school accounts only, consumers for Microsoft accounts only, and tenant identifiers such as the tenant ID or domain name. For more detail, see protocol basics. |
| client_id | required | The Application Id that the registration portal (apps.dev.microsoft.com) assigned your app. |
| grant_type | required | Must be authorization_code for the authorization code flow. |
| scope | required | A space-separated list of scopes. The scopes requested in this leg must be equivalent to or a subset of the scopes requested in the first (authorization) leg. If the scopes specified in this request span multiple resource servers, then the v2.0 endpoint will return a token for the resource specified in the first scope. |
| code | required | The authorization_code that you acquired in the first leg of the flow. |
| redirect_uri | required | The same redirect_uri value that was used to acquire the authorization_code. |
| client_secret | required for web apps | The application secret that you created in the app registration portal for your app. It should not be used in a native app, because client_secrets cannot be reliably stored on devices. It is required for web apps and web APIs, which have the ability to store the client_secret securely on the server side. |
Although the access token is opaque to your app, the response contains a list of the permissions that the access token is good for in the scope parameter.
{
"token_type": "Bearer",
"scope": "user.read%20Fmail.read",
"expires_in": 3600,
"access_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsIng1dCI6Ik5HVEZ2ZEstZnl0aEV1Q...",
"refresh_token": "AwABAAAAvPM1KaPlrEqdFSBzjqfTGAMxZGUTdM0t4B4..."
}
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| token_type | Indicates the token type value. The only type that Azure AD supports is Bearer |
| scope | A space separated list of the Microsoft Graph permissions that the access_token is valid for. |
| expires_in | How long the access token is valid (in seconds). |
| access_token | The requested access token. Your app can use this token to call Microsoft Graph. |
| refresh_token | An OAuth 2.0 refresh token. Your app can use this token acquire additional access tokens after the current access token expires. Refresh tokens are long-lived, and can be used to retain access to resources for extended periods of time. For more detail, refer to the v2.0 token reference. |
Once you have an access token, you can use it to call Microsoft Graph by including it in the Authorization header of a request. The following request gets the profile of the signed-in user.
GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me
Authorization: Bearer eyJ0eXAiO ... 0X2tnSQLEANnSPHY0gKcgw
Host: graph.microsoft.com
A successful response will look similar to this (some response headers have been removed):
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json;odata.metadata=minimal;odata.streaming=true;IEEE754Compatible=false;charset=utf-8
request-id: f45d08c0-6901-473a-90f5-7867287de97f
client-request-id: f45d08c0-6901-473a-90f5-7867287de97f
OData-Version: 4.0
Duration: 727.0022
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2017 05:21:18 GMT
Content-Length: 407
{
"@odata.context":"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/$metadata#users/$entity",
"id":"12345678-73a6-4952-a53a-e9916737ff7f",
"businessPhones":[
"+1 555555555"
],
"displayName":"Chris Green",
"givenName":"Chris",
"jobTitle":"Software Engineer",
"mail":null,
"mobilePhone":"+1 5555555555",
"officeLocation":"Seattle Office",
"preferredLanguage":null,
"surname":"Green",
"userPrincipalName":"[email protected]"
}
Access tokens are short lived, and you must refresh them after they expire to continue accessing resources. You can do so by submitting another POST request to the /token endpoint, this time providing the refresh_token instead of the code.
// Line breaks for legibility only
POST /common/oauth2/v2.0/token HTTP/1.1
Host: https://login.microsoftonline.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
client_id=6731de76-14a6-49ae-97bc-6eba6914391e
&scope=user.read%20mail.read
&refresh_token=OAAABAAAAiL9Kn2Z27UubvWFPbm0gLWQJVzCTE9UkP3pSx1aXxUjq...
&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%2Fmyapp%2F
&grant_type=refresh_token
&client_secret=JqQX2PNo9bpM0uEihUPzyrh // NOTE: Only required for web apps
| Parameter | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| client_id | required | The Application Id that the registration portal (apps.dev.microsoft.com) assigned your app. |
| grant_type | required | Must be refresh_token. |
| scope | required | A space-separated list of permissions (scopes). The permissions requested must be equivalent to or a subset of the permissions requested in the original authorization_code request. |
| refresh_token | required | The refresh_token that you acquired during the token request. |
| redirect_uri | required | The same redirect_uri value that was used to acquire the authorization_code. |
| client_secret | required for web apps | The application secret that you created in the app registration portal for your app. It should not be used in a native app, because client_secrets cannot be reliably stored on devices. It is required for web apps and web APIs, which have the ability to store the client_secret securely on the server side. |
A successful token response will look similar to the following.
{
"access_token": "eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsIng1dCI6Ik5HVEZ2ZEstZnl0aEV1Q...",
"token_type": "Bearer",
"expires_in": 3599,
"scope": "user.read%20mail.read",
"refresh_token": "AwABAAAAvPM1KaPlrEqdFSBzjqfTGAMxZGUTdM0t4B4...",
}
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| access_token | The requested access token. The app can use this token in calls to Microsoft Graph. |
| token_type | Indicates the token type value. The only type that Azure AD supports is Bearer |
| expires_in | How long the access token is valid (in seconds). |
| scope | The permissions (scopes) that the access_token is valid for. |
| refresh_token | A new OAuth 2.0 refresh token. You should replace the old refresh token with this newly acquired refresh token to ensure your refresh tokens remain valid for as long as possible. |
You can call Microsoft Graph on behalf of a user from the following kinds of apps:
For more information about supported app types with the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint, see Types of apps.
Note: Calling Microsoft Graph from a standalone web API is not currently supported by the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint. For this scenario, you need to use the Azure AD endpoint.
For more information about getting access to Microsoft Graph on behalf of a user from the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint:
There are several differences between using the Azure AD endpoint and the Azure AD v2.0 endpoint. For example:
resource parameter in authorization and token requests to specify the resource, such as Microsoft Graph, for which it wants permissions. The endpoint does not support the scope parameter. prompt=admin_consent parameter in the authorization request to obtain administrator consent for an organization. For more information, see Triggering the Azure AD consent framework at runtime in Integrating applications with Azure Active Directory.For more information about getting access to Microsoft Graph on behalf of a user from the Azure AD endpoint: