Types of Connections

The following connection types are supported:

Basic

The "Basic" type supports HTTP Basic Authentication which requires that a username and password are send in the http authentication header.

Bearer

The "Bearer" type support HTTP Bearer Authentication which requires that a bearer token be provide in the HTTP authentication header.

Client Grant

The "Client Grant" type is used for OAUTH2 client grant authentication in which a Client Id and Client Secret are exchanged for an authentication token. The authentication token is then used as a Bearer token. Tokens can have varying expiration times however (sometimes as short an an hour) and must be renewed periodically using the Client Id and Secret.

Kafka

The "Kafka" type is used specifically for a connection to an Apache Kafka message broker and as such requires specific information about the broker.

Password Grant

The "Password Grant" type is used for an OAUTH2 Password Grant which makes use of a "Resource Owner's" username and password credentiasl.

Public

The "Public" type means that the third-party API does not require any authentication and is open to the public.

AI Connections

AI Connections (AI Provider Connections) are Connections configured specifically for AI providers used by Contextual’s AI Gateway. They are referenced by AI Routes and used by nodes like AI Generate. Under the hood, they populate the appropriate Connection type and fields for the selected provider.

Pulsar

Similar to the "Kafka" type, the "Pulsar" type is used specification for a connection to an Apahe Pulsar message broker and as such requires application-specific information be provided about the broker.

Each of these connection types are described in detail on the following pages.