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Quickstart: Sign in users and call Microsoft Graph from a Python Flask web app

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In this quickstart, you download and run a Python Flask web app sample that demonstrates how to authenticate users and call the Microsoft Graph API. Users in your Microsoft Entra organization can sign into the application.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Register your application

Tip

Steps in this article might vary slightly based on the portal you start from.

Follow these steps to register your application in the Microsoft Entra admin center:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. If you have access to multiple tenants, use the Settings icon in the top menu to switch to the tenant in which you want to register the application from the Directories + subscriptions menu.
  3. Browse to Identity > Applications > App registrations and select New registration.
  4. Enter a Name for your application, for example python-webapp.
  5. Under Supported account types, select Accounts in this organizational directory only.
  6. Under Redirect URIs, select Web for the platform.
  7. Enter a redirect URI of http://localhost:5000/getAToken. You can change this value later.
  8. Select Register.

Step 2: Add a client secret

The sample app uses a client secret to prove its identity when it requests for tokens. Follow these steps to create a client secret for your Python web app:

  1. On the app Overview page, note the Application (client) ID value for later use.
  2. Under Manage, select the Certificates & secrets and from the Client secrets section, select New client secret.
  3. Enter a description for the client secret, leave the default expiration, and select Add.
  4. Save the Value of the Client Secret in a safe location. You need this value configure the code, and you can't retrieve it later.

When creating credentials for a confidential client application, Microsoft recommends that you use a certificate instead of a client secret before moving the application to a production environment. For more information on how to use a certificate, see these instructions.

Step 3: Add a scope

Since this app signs in users, you need to add delegated permissions:

  1. Under Manage, select API permissions > Add a permission.
  2. Ensure that the Microsoft APIs tab is selected.
  3. From the Commonly used Microsoft APIs section, select Microsoft Graph.
  4. From the Delegated permissions section, ensure that User.Read is selected. Use the search box if necessary.
  5. Select Add permissions.

Step 4: Download the sample app

Download the Python code sample or clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/ms-identity-docs-code-python/

Step 5: Configure the sample app

  1. Open the application you downloaded in an IDE and navigate to root folder of the sample app.

    cd flask-web-app

  2. Create an .env file in the root folder of the project using .env.sample as a guide.

    # The following variables are required for the app to run.
CLIENT_ID=<Enter_your_client_id>
CLIENT_SECRET=<Enter_your_client_secret>
AUTHORITY=<Enter_your_authority_url>
    • Set the value of CLIENT_ID to the Application (client) ID for the registered application, available on the overview page.
    • Set the value of CLIENT_SECRET to the client secret you created in the Certificates & Secrets for the registered application.
    • Set the value of AUTHORITY to a https://login.microsoftonline.com/<TENANT_GUID>. The Directory (tenant) ID is available on the app registration overview page.

    The environment variables are referenced in app_config.py, and are kept in a separate .env file to keep them out of source control. The provided .gitignore file prevents the .env file from being checked in.

Step 6: Run the sample app

  1. Create a virtual environment for the app:

    py -m venv .venv
.venv\scripts\activate

  2. Install the requirements using pip:

    pip install -r requirements.txt

  3. Run the app from the command line. Ensure your app is running on the same port as the redirect URI you configured earlier.

    flask run --debug --host=localhost --port=5000

  4. Copy the https URL that appears in the terminal, for example, https://localhost:5000, and paste it into a browser. We recommend using a private or incognito browser session.

  5. Follow the steps and enter the necessary details to sign in with your Microsoft account. You're requested to provide an email address and password to sign in.

  6. The application requests permission to maintain access to data you've given it access to, and to sign you in and read your profile, as shown. Select Accept.

Diagram that shows the sample app requesting for consent to access the required permissions.

  1. The following screenshot appears, indicating that you've successfully signed in to the application.

Diagram that shows how the sample app has successfully signed in a user.

How it works

The following diagram demonstrates how the sample app works:

Diagram that shows how the sample app generated by this quickstart works.

  1. The application uses the identity package to obtain an access token from the Microsoft identity platform. This package is built on top of the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) for Python to simplify authentication and authorization in web apps.

  2. The access token you obtain in the previous step is used as a bearer token to authenticate the user when calling the Microsoft Graph API.

Next steps

Learn more by building a Python web app that signs in users and calls a protected web API in the following multi-part tutorial series:

Tutorial: Web app that signs in users