refresh-token.md

ms.date	ms.topic	ms.custom
08/28/2024	include	devx-track-azurecli

When you sign in with a user account, Azure CLI generates and stores an authentication refresh token. Because access tokens are valid for only a short period of time, a refresh token is issued at the same time the access token is issued. The client application can then exchange this refresh token for a new access token when needed. For more information on token lifetime and expiration, see Refresh tokens in the Microsoft identity platform.

Use the az account get-access-token command to retrieve the access token:

# get access token for the active subscription
az account get-access-token

# get access token for a specific subscription
az account get-access-token --subscription "<subscription ID or name>"

Here is some additional information about access token expiration dates:

• Expiration dates are updated in a format that is supported by MSAL-based Azure CLI.
• Starting from Azure CLI 2.54.0, az account get-access-token returns the expires_on property alongside the expiresOn property for the token expiration time.
• The expires_on property represents a Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) timestamp while the expiresOn property represents a local datetime.
• The expiresOn property doesn't express "fold" when Daylight Saving Time ends. This can cause problems in countries or regions where Daylight Saving Time is adopted. For more information on "fold", see PEP 495 – Local Time Disambiguation.
• We recommend for downstream applications to use the expires_on property, because it uses the Universal Time Code (UTC).

Example output:

{
  "accessToken": "...",
  "expiresOn": "2023-10-31 21:59:10.000000",
  "expires_on": 1698760750,
  "subscription": "...",
  "tenant": "...",
  "tokenType": "Bearer"
}