OAuth
OAuth is an authorization standard that lets users grant another application access to their account resources without sharing their password.
OAuth is an open authorization protocol used on the web and in apps. After a user signs in to a service and approves access, another application receives an access token with a defined scope and lifetime and uses it, instead of the user's password, to reach that account's resources. The widely used version is OAuth 2.0, standardized by the IETF in 2012 as RFC 6749.
It differs from authentication, which verifies who a user is; OpenID Connect, built on top of OAuth 2.0, is commonly used for that purpose. AI tools and MCP servers that connect to outside services also use OAuth to obtain account access.
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Articles covering this entry
Interactive OAuth logins in a browser still place real tokens inside the container.
Create app Connect a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with a server URL and OAuth settings