---
title: CLI Authentication
description: How to authenticate a command line application using Stack Auth
---

If you're building a command line application that runs in a terminal, you can use Stack Auth to let your users log in to their accounts.

To do so, we provide a Python template that you can use as a starting point. [Download it here](https://github.com/stack-auth/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 Stack Auth's Getting Started section to see how this function should look like
  # https://docs.stack-auth.com/python/getting-started/setup

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'])
```
