Authentication

Choose and protect the credential used by a FortyOne integration.

FortyOne accepts bearer credentials on the versioned /api/v1 surface. A credential narrows access; it never replaces workspace membership, team access, or resource-level authorization.

Credential types

CredentialBest forOwnerAvailability
Personal access tokenA script or tool acting for one personAccountAvailable to signed-in members
Service-account keyA deployed process that must not depend on an employee accountWorkspaceWorkspace administrators

For most first integrations, start with a personal access token. Use a service account only when the process genuinely needs a non-human identity and the operation supports it.

Send the credential

Authorization: Bearer <credential>

Send exactly one bearer header. Developer credentials are accepted only by the documented /api/v1 routes; they do not replace a FortyOne web session.

Credential safety

DoAvoid
Store the value in a secret managerSource code and committed .env files
Give each integration its own credentialSharing one token between unrelated systems
Choose the fewest scopes and shortest practical lifetimeBroad, long-lived tokens by default
Rotate immediately after suspected exposureWaiting for expiry after a leak
Log the token prefix and request IDLogging the complete bearer value

FortyOne stores only a digest of the secret. The full value is shown once and cannot be recovered later. Rotation revokes the old personal token immediately; revocation and expiry take effect on the next authentication attempt.

Authentication failures deliberately do not reveal whether a token was unknown, expired, revoked, or malformed.

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