Authenticate to the Brightspace (D2L) Valence API using OAuth 2.0 instead of the deprecated ID-Key signing scheme.
domain: docs.valence.desire2learn.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps
Prefer OAuth 2.0 over the legacy Application ID/Key + User ID/Key HMAC scheme, which D2L has deprecated and no longer fully supports.
For interactive/user-context access, use the Authorization Code Grant against https://auth.brightspace.com/oauth2/auth and https://auth.brightspace.com/core/connect/token.
For service-to-service access, use the Client Credentials Grant with a signed JWT client assertion (RFC 7523, RS256/ES256, etc.) instead of a client_secret.
Request scopes in the <resource-group>:<resource>:<action> format (e.g., users:userdata:read), falling back to core:*:* only for routes without finer-grained scopes.
Call REST endpoints under https://{host}/d2l/api/{component}/{version}/{path} (e.g., /d2l/api/lp/1.31/users/whoami) with the token as Authorization: Bearer.
Known gotchas
The legacy ID-Key scheme still works in some tenants but is deprecated — new integrations should default to OAuth 2.0 unless a specific tenant requires legacy auth.
A 403 "Timestamp out of range" error (legacy scheme) means clock skew requiring resync, not a credential problem.
The Grades API for reading/writing grade values is a distinct API surface from basic authentication setup — getting OAuth working doesn't mean grade endpoints are wired up.
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