C# HttpClient - How to add a JWT bearer token to a HTTP request

on C#

You can add a JWT bearer token to a request by adding it to the Authorization header with a bearer scheme in front of the token value. The syntax of a Authorization header is the following:

Authorization: <auth-scheme> <authorization-parameters>

For a JWT token this would be:

Authorization: bearer eyThisIsYourToken..

In C# you can add the authorization header with a bearer token for a single request using the following:

var requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage
{
    Method = HttpMethod.Get,
    RequestUri = new Uri("/someUrl")
};

//this
requestMessage.Headers.Authorization 
   = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", "eyThisIsYourToken..");

var response = await httpClient.SendAsync(requestMessage);

In the above we create a HttpRequestMessage, we then add the Authorization header using .Headers.Authorization with the auth scheme "Bearer" and the value "eyThisIsYourToken.." which is our token. We then use SendAsync to send the request. You have now sent a HTTP request with a JWT bearer token.

Alternatively to setting the JWT token per request, you can set it as a default header on your HttpClient:

httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
    new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Bearer", "eyThisIsYourToken..");

Using DefaultRequestHeaders you can set headers for all requests created using that HttpClient instance.

I hope you found this helpful, feel free to leave a comment down below!