--- updatedAt: 2026-10-01T07:04:14.000Z agentTools: projectIndex: https://docs.nexhealth.com/v2.2.2/llms.txt --- # Authentication Create your [NexHealth Developer Portal Account](https://developers.nexhealth.com/signup) and generate your [test API key](https://developers.nexhealth.com/test/api-key). Then you can make a POST request to `/authenticates` passing your key in the `Authorization` header. The response will contain a bearer token which is valid for 24 hours in sandbox and 1 hour in production. You must use this bearer token to access all other API routes. The bearer token is a JSON Web Token. You can read more about JSON Web Tokens [here](https://jwt.io/introduction), and find libraries for working with them [here](https://jwt.io/libraries). All unauthenticated requests will return a `401` status code. You can see an example request to `/authenticates` below. ```curl curl --request POST \ --url https://nexhealth.info/authenticates \ --header 'Accept: application/vnd.Nexhealth+json;version=2' \ --header 'Authorization: YOUR_API_KEY' ``` Successful authentication will result in a response containing a bearer token. ```json { "code": true, "data": { "token": "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxIiwic2NwIjoiYXBpX3VzZXIiLCJpYXQiOjE2Mjg3NDMyNzksImV4cCI6MTYyODc0Njg3OSwianRpIjoiNjYxNjY4YWYtMTZkYS00OWFhLTljM2ItNmI0MDNiOTQxZWExIn0.hzbAv-Bx8vhEMXM1sGmAa9tO3WzUyvgBN8aw4tdOrG0" }, "description": "Authenticated", "error": [] } ``` > 📘 Using bearer tokens > > Once you've received your bearer token make sure you add the string "Bearer" to your authentication headers as shown below. ```curl --header 'Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiIxIiwic2NwIjoiYXBpX3VzZXIiLCJpYXQiOjE2Mjg3NDMyNzksImV4cCI6MTYyODc0Njg3OSwianRpIjoiNjYxNjY4YWYtMTZkYS00OWFhLTljM2ItNmI0MDNiOTQxZWExIn0.hzbAv-Bx8vhEMXM1sGmAa9tO3WzUyvgBN8aw4tdOrG0' ``` Please note that if you are using these documentation pages to make calls, you must add "Bearer" to the Authentication header as a prefix before the bearer token as shown below for the request to be accepted. ![](https://files.readme.io/f61010c-Screenshot_2024-06-03_at_12.41.55_PM.png)