How to bootstrap a Confluence application link integration?

[Michael Hoagland]

I'm trying to get an application link up and running. I've read over the OAuth 2 documentation and have the type, alg, iss, and other claims, but I'm stuck. In trying to add where my application lives as an application link, I get an error and no more information that seems required by OAuth. Further, the iss claim I'm supposed to send is a Confluence issued app key. How do I get this key? How do I get the Confluence secret?

This leads to other questions such as the authentication handshake. I've not been able to find info on the nature or payloads involved. Is this different from requesting a JWT?

The whole mutual authentication part seems very opaque. Also, documentation seems stale depending on where you come in which is understandable with a platform history like Atlassian's but is frustrating nonetheless. Has anyone successfully integrated apps with app links?

This is for a custom integration for my environment with Confluence Cloud.

[Dario B · Accepted solution]

Application links are used to integrate Atlassian applications among each other. This is also mentioned on the top of the documentation page:

• https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiracloud/using-applinks-to-link-to-other-applications-779295829.html

This page refers to application links between Atlassian products only. For more info about links to third-party apps, check out Jira Rest API OAuth Authentication.

The link quoted above is for Jira, but it is enough to change the endpoints in the examples from https://HOST/ to https://HOST/wiki to have them working for Confluence Cloud as well. 

For the rest, the documentation explaining how to integrate with Confluence Cloud is available at: https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/integrating-with-confluence-cloud/

Finally, in case of further issues, it may be a good idea to actually ask your questions in the developers community or to log a ticket in ecosystem (in case of any bug):

• https://community.developer.atlassian.com/
• https://ecosystem.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/14