How to Generate a JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for Network APIs Authentication

A JSON Web Token (JWT) is an open standard for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object, commonly used for authentication and authorization in web applications. It can be thought of as a digital ID card that confirms who you are without logging in every time you interact with an application. JWT consists of the header, payload, and signature, which are encoded separately using the Base64url encoding algorithm and concatenated using periods. The payload includes information about the user and their claims, such as the application ID, issued time, expiration time, etc. The signature works as a stamp to validate the token, calculated by encoding the header and payload using the Base64url encoding algorithm and signed using a secret key. JWT can be generated in various ways, including using online generators or SDKs, and its implementation is similar across different programming languages like JavaScript and Python. When used with Network APIs, JWT tokens are sent in the Authorization header as Bearer schema to access protected endpoints.