Descope SDKs

Overview

Descope offers both client and backend SDKs for many languages and frameworks. There are three ways to integrate the Descope service with your application. Based on your chosen approach, you will use only backend SDK or both client and backend SDK. The quick start guide covers the most common and recommended integration approach. The authentication guides cover the other approaches. Below is a quick summary of all the supported SDKs.

Descope Client SDKs

If you decide to integrate using either approach 1 or approach 2, then Descope Client SDK is used. If you decide to use approach 1 Descope Client SDK is used to trigger different authentication flows. This is documented in the Quick Start Guide. If you decide to use approach 2 for integrating with Descope, Descope Client SDK can be used to integrate with any of the authentication methods supported.

Descope Backend SDKs

Descope Backend SDKs are most commonly used for JWT validation after the user authenticates with Descope. If you are using Descope Client SDK for integration (approach 1 or approach 2), then the only purpose of using the Backend SDK is for JWT validation as shown in the Quick Start Guide.

In case you chose approach 3 (App Server to Descope) then the backend SDK will be your main point of integration for all authentication calls for different authentication methods. The SDK documentation for each SDK will demonstrate how to implement authentication methods like magic link, OTP etc using approach 3.