---
title: CLI App Authentication
description: How to authenticate users in your own command-line application using Stack Auth
sidebarTitle: CLI App Authentication
---

If you're building your own command-line application, you can use Stack Auth to let users log in from a terminal.

<Info>
  This page is about adding authentication to your own CLI app. For the official `stack` command, see the [Stack CLI guide](/guides/going-further/cli).
</Info>

To do so, we provide a Python template that you can use as a starting point. [Download it here](https://github.com/hexclave/stack-auth/tree/main/docs/public/stack-auth-cli-template.py) and copy it into your project, for example:

```
└─ my-python-app
   ├─ main.py
   └─ stack_auth_cli_template.py  # <- the file you just downloaded (rename to use underscores for Python import)
```

Then, you can import the `prompt_cli_login` function:

```py
from stack_auth_cli_template import prompt_cli_login

# prompt the user to log in
refresh_token = prompt_cli_login(
  app_url="https://your-app-url.example.com",
  project_id="your-project-id-here",
  publishable_client_key="your-publishable-client-key-here",
)

if refresh_token is None:
  print("User cancelled the login process. Exiting")
  exit(1)

# you can also store the refresh token in a file, and only prompt the user to log in if the file doesn't exist

# you can now use the REST API with the refresh token
def stack_auth_request(method, endpoint, **kwargs):
  # ... see the REST API overview for required Stack Auth headers
  # https://docs.stack-auth.com/api/overview

def get_access_token(refresh_token):
  access_token_response = stack_auth_request(
    'post',
    '/api/v1/auth/sessions/current/refresh',
    headers={
      'x-stack-refresh-token': refresh_token,
    }
  )

  return access_token_response['access_token']

def get_user_object(access_token):
  return stack_auth_request(
    'get',
    '/api/v1/users/me',
    headers={
      'x-stack-access-token': access_token,
    }
  )

user = get_user_object(get_access_token(refresh_token))
print("The user is logged in as", user['display_name'] or user['primary_email'])
```
