Authenticated vs Non-Authenticated Apps

When creating an app, you are presented with the option of creating an app that requires authentication or has no authentication required. This guide explains what each option is for.

No Authentication Required

This is the simplest option. An app that does not require authentication can post to any user or team in your organisation and users will be able to configure which posts they get from your app by viewing it on the manage apps page once the app has been enabled.

599 — How an app that does not require authentication appears to users in your organisation once it has been enabled.

597 — When the user clicks the app, they are taken directly to a page where they can view the app's description and configure which post categories from the app they want to receive.

Authentication Required

This is advanced functionality. It allows users to be prompted to authenticate with an external system by Blink so that your app can capture their credentials for this system. You then store these credentials in a Linked Account and use them to fetch data and perform actions in the external system on the user's behalf.

All the apps that Blink provides are authenticated apps. For example, the GitHub app captures user's credentials when they connect their GitHub accounts. It can then send feed events about events in GitHub relevant to the user and the user can click buttons on the feed cards to perform actions in GitHub.

595 — How an app that requires authentication appears to the user.

557 — On click, the user is given more information about what the app does if they connect their account.

561 — When they click Connect, the user is redirected to a page where they input their credentials. The app uses these credentials to save a linked account for the user via the Blink API. The user then sees that their account has been linked in the manage apps page. They can then configure which types of feed post they receive from the app.

For more information about how to build an authenticated app, please read Building Authenticated Apps.