Nicola Delfino takes a look at Microsoft Identity Platform and explores the question, “which OAuth flow should I use?”

OpenID Connect (OIDC) is an authentication protocol built on OAuth 2.0 that you can use to securely sign in a user to an application. OpenID Connect extends the OAuth 2.0 authorization protocol for use as an authentication protocol, so that you can do single sign-on using OAuth 2.0.

OpenID Connect introduces also the concept of an IdToken (a security token that allows the client to verify the identity of the user) and the UserInfo endpoint, an API that returns information about the user.

The first step of OAuth 2.0 is to get authorization from the user. For browser-based or mobile apps, this is usually accomplished by displaying an interface provided by the service to the user.

Continue reading on Nicola’s blog.