Credential Management API

{{DefaultAPISidebar("Credential Management API")}} {{securecontext_header}} 

The Credential Management API enables a website to create, store, and retrieve {{glossary("credential", "credentials")}} . A credential is an item which enables a system to make an {{glossary("authentication")}}  decision: for example, to decide whether to sign a user into an account. We can think of it as a piece of evidence that a user presents to a website to demonstrate that they really are the person they are claiming to be.

Concepts and usage

The central interface is the {{domxref("CredentialsContainer")}} , which is accessed through the {{domxref("navigator.credentials")}}  property and provides three main functions:

• {{domxref("CredentialsContainer.create", "create()")}} : create a new credential.
• {{domxref("CredentialsContainer.store", "store()")}} : store a new credential locally.
• {{domxref("CredentialsContainer.get", "get()")}} : retrieve a credential, which can then be used to log a user in.

The API supports four different types of credential, which are all represented as subclasses of {{domxref("Credential")}} :

The guide page Credential types gives an overview of the different credential types and how they are used.

Interfaces

• {{domxref("Credential")}} 
  • : Provides information about an entity as a prerequisite to a trust decision.
• {{domxref("CredentialsContainer")}} 
  • : Exposes methods to request credentials and notify the user agent when interesting events occur such as successful sign in or sign out. This interface is accessible from navigator.credentials.
• {{domxref("FederatedCredential")}} 
  • : Provides information about credentials from a federated identity provider, which is an entity that a website trusts to correctly authenticate a user, and which provides an API for that purpose. OpenID Connect is an example of such a framework.
• {{domxref("PasswordCredential")}} 
  • : Provides information about a username/password pair.

Extensions to other interfaces

• {{domxref("Navigator.credentials")}}  {{ReadOnlyInline}} 
  • : Returns the {{domxref("CredentialsContainer")}}  interface which exposes methods to request credentials and notify the user agent when interesting events occur such as successful sign in or sign out.

Specifications

{{Specifications}} 

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}} 

See also

• {{domxref("Web Authentication API", "", "", "nocode")}} 
• {{domxref("WebOTP API", "", "", "nocode")}} 
• {{domxref("FedCM API", "Federated Credential Management (FedCM) API", "", "nocode")}}