jpadilla/pyjwt

★ 5,657PythonAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((PyJWT))
    What it does
      Create tokens
      Verify tokens
      Sign with secret key
    How it works
      Encode a dictionary
      Returns token string
      Decode and verify
    Tech
      Python library
      pip install
      RFC 7519 standard
    Use Cases
      API authentication
      Login sessions
      Permission passing
    Audience
      Backend developers
      API builders
      Auth integrators

mindmap root((PyJWT)) What it does Create tokens Verify tokens Sign with secret key How it works Encode a dictionary Returns token string Decode and verify Tech Python library pip install RFC 7519 standard Use Cases API authentication Login sessions Permission passing Audience Backend developers API builders Auth integrators

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Add token-based login to a Python API so users stay signed in without server-side sessions.

USE CASE 2

Pass a user's role or permissions to a backend service in a tamper-proof token.

USE CASE 3

Verify that an incoming API request is from a trusted source using a shared secret key.

USE CASE 4

Build a simple auth layer for a side project in three lines of Python code.

Tech stack

PythonJWTHS256pip

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Install with a single pip command. Encode and decode tokens in three lines of code. No database or server setup required.

The explanation does not mention a specific license.

In plain English

PyJWT is a Python library for working with JSON Web Tokens, which are a standard way to pass information securely between two parties. A token is a small, self-contained packet of data, like a user's ID or permissions, that gets signed with a secret key. Any server that knows the secret can verify that the token was not tampered with, which makes them popular for login sessions and API authentication. The library has a straightforward interface. You call one function to create a token from a Python dictionary and a secret key, and another function to decode and verify it. The README shows the full round-trip in three lines of code: encode a dictionary, print the resulting token string, then decode it back to the original dictionary. PyJWT follows RFC 7519, the official specification for JSON Web Tokens. It supports common signing algorithms including HS256, and the full documentation on the readthedocs site covers additional algorithms, validation options, and more advanced configuration. Installation is a single pip command. The README is short and the library is intentionally narrow in scope: it handles token creation and verification, nothing more. Auth0, a company that builds authentication services, sponsors the project and mentions their own Python SDK for teams that want a more complete authentication solution built on top of tokens like these.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Using the PyJWT library, show me how to create a JWT token that stores a user ID and an expiry time, then verify and decode it with a secret key.

Prompt 2

I have a FastAPI app and I want to protect certain routes so only logged-in users can access them. Show me how to issue and validate JWT tokens using PyJWT.

Prompt 3

Using PyJWT, how do I include a user's role (admin or viewer) inside a token, and then check that role when the token is decoded on the server?

Prompt 4

Show me how to handle a PyJWT DecodeError or ExpiredSignatureError gracefully in a Python API so I can return a proper 401 response to the client.

Prompt 5

I'm building a simple Python script that needs to call a third-party API using a signed JWT. How do I generate the token with PyJWT using HS256 and attach it to the request header?

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