I’m working on a web application that needs to connect with Spotify’s API. I want users to be able to play songs, pause music, and skip tracks directly from my website. The app also needs to show playlists from certain musicians and let users save those playlists to their own Spotify accounts.
I know there are different ways to authenticate with Spotify like Authorization Code, Client Credentials, and Implicit Grant flows. Since my app needs to access user accounts and modify their playlists, I assume I need some kind of access token. Which authentication approach would work best for what I’m trying to build?
I’m still learning about OAuth and API integration, so any guidance on the right direction would be helpful.
Authorization Code with PKCE is definitely your best bet. I built something similar last year and started with implicit grant - big mistake. Ran into security issues and couldn’t refresh tokens properly. Authorization Code gives you both access and refresh tokens, which you absolutely need for ongoing playlist modifications. You’ll want the user-modify-playback-state scope for playback control and either playlist-modify-public or playlist-modify-private for saving playlists. Don’t forget proper token refresh logic - access tokens die after an hour. Learned that one the hard way when users kept getting booted unexpectedly. PKCE adds solid security without making things complicated.
you should go with the authorization code flow for your app. it allows you to get user permissions needed for playlist management. don’t bother with client credentials; it lacks user access. as for implicit grant, yeah, they’re phasing it out, so just avoid that.