Microsoft.Identity.Abstractions

Microsoft.Identity.Abstractions contain interfaces and POCO classes used in the Microsoft .NET authentication libraries (Microsoft.IdentityModel, MSAL.NET and Microsoft.Identity.Web). It exposes concepts in three domains:

1. Application options and credentials loader

   The application options are typically the options that you find in configuration files like the appsettings.json file. They describe the authentication aspects of your application. The library offers two layer. A standard layer, and a Microsoft Identity platform specialization.

   

   An important part of the application options are the credentials. In addition to the credential descriptions, the library offers extensibility mechanisms so that implementers can add their own credential source loaders.

   

   There can be several application options with different names (for instance in ASP.NET Core these would be different authentication schemes)

2. Acquire tokens from Azure AD

   Once configured, an application can acquire tokens from the Identity provider. This is a low level API, in the sense that you would probably prefer to call downstream web APIs without having to be preoccupied about the authentication aspects. If you really want to use the lower level API, you should:

   • get hold of a ITokenAcquirerFactory. Implementations can provide a TokenAcquirerFactory for instance, with a singleton.
   • get a ITokenAcquirer (by its name, for instance). This corresponds to the application options
   • From the token acquirer get a token for on behalf of the user, or the app. If you don't specify any AcquireTokenOptions, the implementation should do its best effort. The AcquireTokenOptions enable you to override the defaults.

   

3. Calling downstream web APIs

   It's also possible (and recommended) to use higher level APIs:

   • IDownstreamApi enables you to call a downstream web API and let the implementation handle the serialization of the input parameter (if any), handling the getting the authorization header and attaching it to the HttpClient, call the downstream web API, handle errors, deserialize the answer and return it as a strongly typed object. You can use customize all these steps, for instance by providing your own serializer / deserializer.
   • IAuthorizationHeaderProvider is the component that provides the authorization header, delegating to the ITokenAcquirer. Whereas ITokenAcquirer only knows about tokens, IAuthorizationHeaderProvider knows about protocols (for instance bearer, Pop, etc ...)

   

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