Getting started with App ID

If you’re an existing IBM Cloud App ID user, you can continue to use the service until it is no longer supported on 01 October 2025.

Application security can be incredibly complicated. For most developers, it's one of the hardest parts of creating an app. How can you be sure that you are protecting your users information? By integrating IBM Cloud® App ID into your apps, you can secure resources and add authentication; even when you don't have a lot of security experience.

By requiring users to sign in to your app, you can store user data such as app preferences or information from the public social profiles, and then use that data to customize each experience of your app. App ID provides a framework for you, but you can also bring your own branded sign in screens when working with cloud directory.

We’d love to hear from you with feedback and questions!

If you have technical questions about App ID, post your question on Stack Overflow and tag your question with ibm-appid.
Reach out directly to the development team on Slack!

Getting started? Try walking through our video tutorials.

Create a service instance

Create and bind an instance of App ID to your app to get started.

Check to be sure that you have the IBM Cloud prerequisites.
In the IBM Cloud catalog, select App ID. The service configuration screen opens.
Give your service instance a name, or use the preset name.
Select your pricing plan and click Create.

That's it! You're ready to start configuring your application settings.

Configure a sample app

You can use one of the preconfigured sample apps to get familiar with working with the service.

Out of the box, the sample apps are configured with two identity providers and the ability to review authentication. Sample apps are offered in iOS Swift, Android, Node.js, Java and Single-page application. If you don't see a language in which you feel comfortable working, don't worry! You can integrate App ID into your own application by using the provided APIs.

To build a sample app:

Click Download Sample.
Click on the language of your choice to download the sample. Don't see the language you're looking for? Don't worry! You can take advantage of App ID through the APIs.
Be sure that you have the prerequisites installed or completed.
Follow the Build & Run steps to set up your sample with App ID.
Click Review Activity to see any authentication events that occurred. Any type of sign in creates an event that is visible on this page.
Customize the sign in widget.
1. Add an image such as a brand logo by clicking Select and browsing your local system for an image to upload.
2. Choose a color scheme by either selecting one of the color options or specifying in a hex value.
3. Change between web and mobile to see how the color scheme looks on each type of device.
4. When you're happy with your choices, click Save Changes.
In a browser, refresh your login page. The changes that you made in the previous step are already visible.

Support for Cloud Foundry service broker

The IBM Cloud Foundry service broker is unsupported. All services that use the Cloud Foundry service broker will stop working on 1 June 2023, when Cloud Foundry enters the End-of-Support stage.

Not sure if your App ID instance is using the Cloud Foundry service broker? In the Cloud Foundry services section, check whether your App ID instance is listed as an alias. If your instance is already an alias, as shown in the following screen capture, you do not need to take any action.

Screenshot showing how to identify instances with aliases. — Figure 1. Identifying instances with aliases.

If your instance is not an alias and you want to keep it, please contact IBM Cloud support to discuss next steps.

Next steps

Ready to jump in and get started with your own apps? Start by adding the service to your app. The service provides SDKs for the most used languages, but if you don't see an SDK for the language that your app is written in, you can still take advantage of App ID by using the APIs.