Microsoft identity platform documentation

Use the Microsoft identity platform and our open-source authentication libraries to sign in users with Microsoft Entra accounts, Microsoft personal accounts, and social accounts like Facebook and Google. Protect your web APIs and access protected APIs like Microsoft Graph to work with your users' and organization's data.

Authentication and authorization for any application

Focus on documentation for the app you're building or extending with identity and access management (IAM) support by selecting its type.

Single-page app (SPA)

A web application whose code is downloaded and run in the browser itself.

Web app

A traditional, or "classic," web app whose code runs on a server, returning page data for the browser to render.

Web API

A RESTful web service accessed by applications or other web APIs, typically to work with data served by the API.

Desktop app

Applications with a user interface (UI) whose code runs on a user's desktop, laptop, or notebook computer.

Mobile app

Applications with a UI whose code runs on a user's phone, tablet, or other mobile device.

Background service, daemon, or script

An application or script without a UI that performs non-interactive tasks like server-to-server communication or scheduled jobs.

Get started

Quick access to guidance on adding core IAM features to your applications and best practices for keeping your apps secure and available.

Microsoft authentication libraries

The open-source Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) is built and supported by Microsoft. We recommend MSAL for any app that uses the Microsoft identity platform for authentication and authorization.

Authenticate partners and customers

Sign in users from partner organizations in a business-to-business (B2B) scenario or create custom sign-up and sign-in experiences for your customers in a business-to-customer (B2C) scenario.

Connect to Microsoft Graph

Programmatic access to organizational, user, and application data stored in Azure Active Directory. Call Microsoft Graph from your application to create and manage Microsoft Entra users and groups, get and modify your users' data like their profiles, calendars, email, and more.

Manage and market your apps

Make existing SaaS applications like Dropbox, Salesforce, and ServiceNow available to your organization's users, configure SSO, and manage security. Or, become an independent software vendor (ISV) by publishing your own SaaS application for use by _other_ organizations that use Azure AD.

Manage application users and their access

Automatically create user identities and their roles in your organization's installed SaaS applications. HR-driven provisioning, System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM), and more.