Authorize endpoint

The /oauth2/authorize endpoint is a redirection endpoint that supports two redirect destinations. If you include an identity_provider or idp_identifier parameter in the URL, it silently redirects your user to the sign-in page for that identity provider (IdP). Otherwise, it redirects to the Login endpoint with the same URL parameters that you included in your request.

To use the authorize endpoint, invoke your user's browser at /oauth2/authorize with parameters that provide your user pool with information about the following user pool details.

The app client that you want to sign in to.
The callback URL that you want to end up at.
The OAuth 2.0 scopes that you want to request in your user's access token.
Optionally, the third-party IdP that you want to use to sign in.

You can also supply state and nonce parameters that Amazon Cognito uses to validate incoming claims.

GET `/oauth2/authorize`

The /oauth2/authorize endpoint only supports HTTPS GET. Your app typically initiates this request in your user's browser. You can only make requests to the /oauth2/authorize endpoint over HTTPS.

You can learn more about the definition of the authorization endpoint in the OpenID Connect (OIDC) standard at Authorization Endpoint.

Request parameters

response_type

The response type. Must be code or token.

A successful request with a response_type of code returns an authorization code grant. An authorization code grant is a code parameter that Amazon Cognito appends to your redirect URL. Your app can exchange the code with the Token endpoint for access, ID, and refresh tokens. As a security best practice, and to receive refresh tokens for your users, use an authorization code grant in your app.

A successful request with a response_type of token returns an implicit grant. An implicit grant is an ID and access token that Amazon Cognito appends to your redirect URL. An implicit grant is less secure because it exposes tokens and potential identifying information to users. You can deactivate support for implicit grants in the configuration of your app client.

Required.

client_id

The Client ID.

The value of client_id must be the ID of an app client in the user pool where you make the request. Your app client must support sign-in by Amazon Cognito native users or at least one third-party IdP.

Required.

redirect_uri

The URL where the authentication server redirects the browser after Amazon Cognito authorizes the user.

A redirect uniform resource identifier (URI) must have the following attributes:

It must be an absolute URI.
You must have pre-registered the URI with a client.
It can't include a fragment component.

See OAuth 2.0 - Redirection Endpoint.

Amazon Cognito requires that your redirect URI use HTTPS, except for http://localhost, which you can set as a callback URL for testing purposes.

Amazon Cognito also supports app callback URLs such as myapp://example.

Required.

state

When your app adds a state parameter to a request, Amazon Cognito returns its value to your app when the /oauth2/authorize endpoint redirects your user.

Add this value to your requests to guard against CSRF attacks.

You can't set the value of a state parameter to a URL-encoded JSON string. To pass a string that matches this format in a state parameter, encode the string to Base64, then decode it in your app.

Optional but recommended.

identity_provider

Add this parameter to bypass the hosted UI and redirect your user to a provider sign-in page. The value of the identity_provider parameter is the name of the identity provider (IdP) as it appears in your user pool.

For social providers, you can use the identity_provider values Facebook, Google, LoginWithAmazon, and SignInWithApple.
For Amazon Cognito user pools, use the value COGNITO.
For SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity providers (IdPs), use the name that you assigned to the IdP in your user pool.

Optional.

idp_identifier

Add this parameter to redirect to a provider with an alternative name for the identity_provider name. You can enter identifiers for your SAML 2.0 and OIDC IdPs from the Sign-in experience tab of the Amazon Cognito console.

Optional.

scope

Can be a combination of any system-reserved scopes or custom scopes that are associated with a client. Scopes must be separated by spaces. System reserved scopes are openid, email, phone, profile, and aws.cognito.signin.user.admin. Any scope used must be associated with the client, or it will be ignored at runtime.

If the client doesn't request any scopes, the authentication server uses all scopes that are associated with the client.

An ID token is only returned if openid scope is requested. The access token can be only used against Amazon Cognito user pools if aws.cognito.signin.user.admin scope is requested. The phone, email, and profile scopes can only be requested if openid scope is also requested. These scopes dictate the claims that go inside the ID token.

Optional.

code_challenge_method

The method that you used to generate the challenge. The PKCE RFC defines two methods, S256 and plain; however, Amazon Cognito authentication server supports only S256.

Optional.

code_challenge

The challenge that you generated from the code_verifier.

Required only when you specify a code_challenge_method parameter.

nonce

A random value that you can add to the request. The nonce value that you provide is included in the ID token that Amazon Cognito issues. To guard against replay attacks, your app can inspect the nonce claim in the ID token and compare it to the one you generated. For more information about the nonce claim, see ID token validation in the OpenID Connect standard.

Examples requests with positive responses

Authorization code grant

Sample Request


GET https://mydomain.auth.us-east-1.amazoncognito.com/oauth2/authorize?
                                 response_type=code&
                                 client_id=ad398u21ijw3s9w3939&
                                 redirect_uri=https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri&
                                 state=STATE&
                                 scope=openid+profile+aws.cognito.signin.user.admin

Sample response

The Amazon Cognito authentication server redirects back to your app with the authorization code and state. The code and state must be returned in the query string parameters and not in the fragment. A query string is the part of a web request that appears after a '?' character; the string can contain one or more parameters separated by '&' characters. A fragment is the part of a web request that appears after a '#' character to specify a subsection of a document.

Note

The response returns a one time use code that is valid for five minutes.


HTTP/1.1 302 Found
                    Location: https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri?code=AUTHORIZATION_CODE&state=STATE

Authorization code grant with PKCE

Sample request


GET https://mydomain.auth.us-east-1.amazoncognito.com/oauth2/authorize?
                          response_type=code&
                          client_id=ad398u21ijw3s9w3939&
                          redirect_uri=https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri&
                          state=STATE&
                          scope=aws.cognito.signin.user.admin&
                          code_challenge_method=S256&
                          code_challenge=CODE_CHALLENGE

Sample response

The authentication server redirects back to your app with the authorization code and state. The code and state must be returned in the query string parameters and not in the fragment.


HTTP/1.1 302 Found
                    Location: https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri?code=AUTHORIZATION_CODE&state=STATE

Token grant without `openid` scope

Sample request


GET https://mydomain.auth.us-east-1.amazoncognito.com/oauth2/authorize?
                         response_type=token&
                         client_id=ad398u21ijw3s9w3939&
                         redirect_uri=https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri&
                         state=STATE&
                         scope=aws.cognito.signin.user.admin

Sample response

The Amazon Cognito authorization server redirects back to your app with access token. Because openid scope was not requested, Amazon Cognito doesn't return an ID token. Also, Amazon Cognito doesn't return a refresh token in this flow. Amazon Cognito returns the access token and state in the fragment and not in the query string.


HTTP/1.1 302 Found
                        Location: https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri#access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN&token_type=bearer&expires_in=3600&state=STATE

Token grant with `openid` scope

Sample request



                        GET
                            https://mydomain.auth.us-east-1.amazoncognito.com/oauth2/authorize? 
                            response_type=token& 
                            client_id=ad398u21ijw3s9w3939& 
                            redirect_uri=https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri& 
                            state=STATE&
                            scope=aws.cognito.signin.user.admin+openid+profile

Sample response

The authorization server redirects back to your app with access token and ID token (because openid scope was included).


HTTP/1.1 302 Found
                         Location: https://YOUR_APP/redirect_uri#id_token=ID_TOKEN&access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN&token_type=bearer&expires_in=3600&state=STATE

Examples of negative responses

The following are examples of negative responses:

If client_id and redirect_uri are valid, but the request parameters aren't formatted correctly, the authentication server redirects the error to client's redirect_uri and appends an error message in a URL parameter. Examples of incorrect formatting are a request doesn't include a response_type parameter, if the response provides code_challenge but not code_challenge_method, or that code_challenge_method is not 'S256'.

HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request
If the client requests code or token in response_type but doesn't have permission for these requests, the Amazon Cognito authorization server returns unauthorized_client to client's redirect_uri, as follows:

HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=unauthorized_client
If the client requests scope that is unknown, malformed, or not valid, the Amazon Cognito authorization server returns invalid_scope to the client's redirect_uri, as follows:

HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_scope
If there is any unexpected error in the server, the authentication server returns server_error to client's redirect_uri. Because the HTTP 500 error doesn't get sent to the client, don't display the error to the user in the browser. The following error should result:

HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=server_error
When Amazon Cognito authenticates through federation to third-party IdPs, Amazon Cognito might experience connection issues such as the following:
- If a connection timeout occurs while requesting token from the IdP, the authentication server redirects the error to the client’s redirect_uri as follows:
  
  HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=Timeout+occurred+in+calling+IdP+token+endpoint
- If a connection timeout occurs while calling the jwks endpoint for id_token validation, the authentication server redirects the error to the client’s redirect_uri as follows:
  
  HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=error_description=Timeout+in+calling+jwks+uri
When authenticating by federating to third-party IdPs, the providers may return error responses due to configuration errors or otherwise such as the following:
- If an error response is received from other providers, the authentication server redirects the error to the client’s redirect_uri as follows:
  
  HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=[IdP name]+Error+-+[status code]+error getting token
- If an error response is received from Google, the authentication server redirects the error to the client’s redirect_uri as follows: HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=Google+Error+-+[status code]+[Google provided error code]
When Amazon Cognito encounters an exception in the communication protocol while it makes a connection to an external IdP, the authentication server redirects the error to the client's redirect_uri with either of the following messages:
- HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=Connection+reset
- HTTP 1.1 302 Found Location: https://client_redirect_uri?error=invalid_request&error_description=Read+timed+out

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Document Conventions

Hosted UI and OIDC endpoints reference

Token endpoint

Authorize endpoint

GET /oauth2/authorize

Request parameters

Examples requests with positive responses

Authorization code grant

Authorization code grant with PKCE

Token grant without openid scope

Token grant with openid scope

Examples of negative responses

GET `/oauth2/authorize`

Token grant without `openid` scope

Token grant with `openid` scope