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til/unix/authorize-a-curl-request.md
2025-07-02 12:25:32 -05:00

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# Authorize A cURL Request
When making a cURL request to an endpoint that requires authentication,
sometimes you already have a bearer token and other times you have a username
and password pair. If you have a bearer token, you can format a `Authorization`
header with the `-H` flag that includes that value.
If you have a username and password for the API, you can instead use the `-u`
flag. The `-u` flag will format the username and password, base64 encode it,
and then add it as an `Authorization` header.
```bash
$ curl -v -u "username:password" https://some-endpoint.com/api/v1/status
...
> GET /api/v1/status HTTP/2
> Host: some-endpoint.com
> Authorization: Basic dXNlcm5hbWU6cGFzc3dvcmQK
> User-Agent: curl/8.1.2
...
```
You can even pass in only the username to the `-u` flag and cURL will know to
prompt you for the password. This is a nice way to avoid putting plain text
passwords in your shell history.
```bash
$ curl -v -u "username" https://some-endpoint.com/api/v1/status
Enter host password for user 'username':
```
See `man curl` for more details.