Once you’ve set-up your account on HERE platform, and got a tour of the platform, you are ready to start building your location-centric app with HERE APIs. The first step in building the app is to authenticate HERE APIs on platform.here.com.

Why do you need to know about authentication?

HERE APIs accept requests only from authorized applications. Requests from anonymous applications are rejected. API Authentication can be done via API keys and via OAuth credentials.

How to authenticate the app?

It is not as hard as it sounds. We will walk through it in 2 simple steps:

1. Create and register an app on HERE platform
2. Create API keys or OAuth credentials

Step 1: Create and register an app

On the platform portal page, under Access location services, click on Create an app. It opens the Register new app dialog. Enter an app name and click Register.

Creating an app

Step 2: Authenticate the app

Once the app is created, you can see the 2 methods of authentication. Let's start with OAuth 2.0 credentials.

Generating OAuth 2.0 token

Be sure to download the credentials file or save the Access key secret. Once this dialog is closed, the secret key cannot be retrieved.

OAuth credentials (access key and secret) created through HERE platform are used to request an  Access Token. You will include the Access Token in your requests to the HERE APIs.

Another way to authenticate the app is to use an API Key:

Generating API Keys

That's it! Either of these keys can be used in app development. 

To access the keys later, click your name on the top right of HERE platform, go to Account Settings, then select Apps tab on the top to see the list of your applications.

Accessing API keys and OAuth credentials

The HERE platform is the one-stop shop for everything with HERE Location Services. Get started with platform, create your API keys and start building your location-based applications. Leave a comment or reach us on Twitter at @heredev. Excited to see your work!