auth0-fastapi-api

📚 Documentation - 🚀 Getting Started - 💬 Feedback

Documentation

• QuickStart- our guide for adding Auth0 to your Fastapi app.
• Examples - examples for your different use cases.
• Docs Site - explore our docs site and learn more about Auth0.

Getting Started

1. Install the SDK

This library requires Python 3.9+.

pip install auth0-fastapi-api

If you’re using Poetry:

poetry install auth0-fastapi-api

2. Configure and Register the Auth0FastAPI Plugin

In your FastAPI application, create an instance of the Auth0FastAPI class. Supply the domain and audience from Auth0:

• The AUTH0_DOMAIN can be obtained from the Auth0 Dashboard once you've created an API.
• The AUTH0_AUDIENCE is the identifier of the API that is being called. You can find this in the API section of the Auth0 dashboard.

from fastapi_plugin.fast_api_client import Auth0FastAPI

# Create the Auth0 integration
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
)

DPoP Configuration (Optional)

The SDK supports DPoP (Demonstrating Proof-of-Possession) for enhanced security:

# Mixed mode - accepts both Bearer and DPoP (recommended for migration)
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_enabled=True,      # Enable DPoP support
    dpop_required=False     # Allow Bearer tokens too (mixed mode)
)

# DPoP-only mode - rejects Bearer tokens
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_enabled=True,
    dpop_required=True      # Only accept DPoP tokens
)

# Custom DPoP timing configuration
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_enabled=True,
    dpop_iat_leeway=30,     # Clock skew tolerance (seconds)
    dpop_iat_offset=300     # Maximum DPoP proof age (seconds)
)

Reverse Proxy Configuration

When deploying behind a reverse proxy (nginx, AWS ALB, etc.), you must enable proxy trust for DPoP validation to work correctly:

from fastapi import FastAPI
from fastapi_plugin.fast_api_client import Auth0FastAPI

app = FastAPI()

# CRITICAL: Enable proxy trust when behind a reverse proxy
app.state.trust_proxy = True

auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_enabled=True
)

Why this matters:

• DPoP validation requires matching the exact URL the client used
• Behind a proxy, your app sees internal URLs (e.g., http://localhost:8000/api)
• The client's DPoP proof contains the public URL (e.g., https://api.example.com/api)
• Without trust_proxy=True, validation will fail

Note: Only enable trust_proxy=True when your app is actually behind a trusted reverse proxy. Never enable this for direct internet-facing deployments, as it would allow header injection attacks.

Nginx Configuration Example:

location /api {
    proxy_pass http://backend:8000;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Prefix /api;
}

3. Protecting API Routes

To protect a FastAPI route, use the require_auth(...) dependency. The SDK automatically detects and validates both Bearer and DPoP authentication schemes. Any incoming requests must include a valid token in the Authorization header, or they will receive an error response (e.g., 401 Unauthorized).

@app.get("/protected-api")
async def protected(
    # The route depends on require_auth returning the decoded token claims
    claims: dict = Depends(auth0.require_auth())
):
    # `claims` is the verified JWT payload (dict) extracted by the SDK
    return {"message": f"Hello, {claims['sub']}"}

How It Works

Bearer Authentication:

• The user sends a request with Authorization: Bearer <JWT>.
• The SDK parses the token, checks signature via Auth0's JWKS, validates standard claims like iss, aud, exp, etc.
• If valid, the route receives the decoded claims as a Python dict.

DPoP Authentication:

• The user sends a request with Authorization: DPoP <JWT> and DPoP: <proof-jwt> headers.
• The SDK validates both the access token and the DPoP proof, including cryptographic binding.
• DPoP provides enhanced security through proof-of-possession of private keys.
• If valid, the route receives the decoded claims as a Python dict.

The SDK automatically detects which authentication scheme is being used and validates accordingly.

[!IMPORTANT]
This method protects API endpoints using bearer tokens. It does not create or manage user sessions in server-side rendering scenarios. For session-based usage, consider a separate library or approach.

Custom Claims

If your tokens have additional custom claims, you’ll see them in the claims dictionary. For example:

@app.get("/custom")
async def custom_claims_route(claims: dict = Depends(auth0.require_auth())):
    # Suppose your JWT includes { "permissions": ["read:data"] }
    permissions = claims.get("permissions", [])
    return {"permissions": permissions}

You can parse or validate these claims however you like in your application code.

Dependency in the path operation decorator

In case you don't need to use the claims dictionary in your endpoint you can also use the dependency as part of the path decorator. For example:

@app.get("/protected", dependencies=[Depends(auth0.require_auth())])
async def protected():
    # Protected endpoint 
    return {"msg": "You need to have an access token to see this endpoint."}

This way you can protected your endpoint and not have an unused variable.

4. Advanced Configuration

• Scopes: If you need to check for specific scopes (like read:data), call require_auth(scopes="read:data") or pass a list of scopes. The SDK will return a 403 if the token lacks those scopes in its scope claim.

@app.get("/read-data")
async def read_data_route(
    claims=Depends(auth0.require_auth(scopes="read:data"))
):
    return {"data": "secret info"}

• Mocking / Testing: To test locally without hitting Auth0’s actual JWKS endpoints, you can mock the HTTP calls using pytest-httpx or patch the verification method to avoid real cryptographic checks.

Example

from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends
from auth0_fastapi_api import Auth0FastAPI
from fastapi.testclient import TestClient

app = FastAPI()
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(domain="my-tenant.us.auth0.com", audience="my-api")

@app.get("/public")
async def public():
    return {"message": "No token required here"}

@app.get("/secure")
async def secure_route(
    claims: dict = Depends(auth0.require_auth(scopes="read:secure"))
):
    # claims might contain {"sub":"user123","scope":"read:secure"}
    return {"message": f"Hello {claims['sub']}, you have read:secure scope!"}

# Example test
def test_public_route():
    client = TestClient(app)
    response = client.get("/public")
    assert response.status_code == 200
    assert response.json() == {"message": "No token required here"}

5. DPoP Authentication

Note: DPoP is currently in Early Access. Contact Auth0 support to enable it for your tenant.

DPoP (Demonstrating Proof-of-Possession) provides enhanced security by binding access tokens to cryptographic proof of possession.

Client Requirements

To use DPoP authentication, clients must:

• Generate an ES256 key pair for DPoP proof signing
• Include two headers in requests:
  • Authorization: DPoP <access-token> - The DPoP-bound access token
  • DPoP: <proof-jwt> - The DPoP proof JWT

Example DPoP Request

GET /protected-api HTTP/1.1
Host: api.example.com
Authorization: DPoP eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1Q...
DPoP: eyJ0eXAiOiJkcG9wK2p3dC...

Migration Strategy

Use mixed mode for gradual migration:

# Start with mixed mode to support both Bearer and DPoP
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_enabled=True,
    dpop_required=False  # Allows both Bearer and DPoP
)

# Later, enforce DPoP-only
auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
    domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
    audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
    dpop_required=True  # Rejects Bearer tokens
)

6. Get an access token for a connection

If you need to get an access token for an upstream idp via a connection, you can use the get_access_token_for_connection method on the underlying api_client:

import asyncio

from fastapi_plugin.fast_api_client import Auth0FastAPI

async def main():
    auth0 = Auth0FastAPI(
        domain="<AUTH0_DOMAIN>",
        audience="<AUTH0_AUDIENCE>",
        client_id="<AUTH0_CLIENT_ID>",
        client_secret="<AUTH0_CLIENT_SECRET>",
    )
    connection = "my-connection" # The Auth0 connection to the upstream idp
    access_token = "..." # The Auth0 access token to exchange

    connection_access_token = await auth0.api_client.get_access_token_for_connection({"connection": connection, "access_token": access_token})
    # The returned token is the access token for the upstream idp
    print(connection_access_token)

asyncio.run(main())

More info https://auth0.com/docs/secure/tokens/token-vault

Feedback

Contributing

We appreciate feedback and contribution to this repo! Before you get started, please read the following:

• Auth0's general contribution guidelines
• Auth0's code of conduct guidelines
• This repo's contribution guide

Raise an issue

To provide feedback or report a bug, please raise an issue on our issue tracker.

Vulnerability Reporting

Please do not report security vulnerabilities on the public GitHub issue tracker. The Responsible Disclosure Program details the procedure for disclosing security issues.

What is Auth0?

Auth0 is an easy to implement, adaptable authentication and authorization platform. To learn more checkout Why Auth0?

This project is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.