Get an Outlook/Graph access token without registering an app in Azure AD
Project description
owa-piggy
Turn your existing Outlook Web session into a reusable API token from the terminal. No app registration, no tenant admin ask, no client secrets.
owa-piggy is the auth broker. The companion suite
owa-tools ships eight binaries
(owa, owa-cal, owa-mail, owa-graph, owa-doctor, owa-people,
owa-sched, owa-drive) that borrow tokens from owa-piggy - separate
package, separate token store, never imported.
Suite
owa-piggy is the M365 auth broker in the
hugr memory suite, alongside
YAAMS (Tier 1 raw), cognitive-ledger (Tier 2 curated), and owa-tools
(M365 read/write). The suite gives you one install (brew install damsleth/tap/hugr), one verb surface (hugr auth ...), and one
CLI contract (output classes, exit codes - see
hugr/CONVENTIONS.md).
owa-piggy continues to work standalone and remains the only thing
that touches your refresh tokens.
Install
Homebrew (recommended):
brew install damsleth/tap/owa-piggy
PyPI:
pipx install owa-piggy
Bleeding edge (main): brew install --HEAD damsleth/tap/owa-piggy
Then pull in the rest of the suite with one shortcut:
owa-piggy install-owa-tools # brew install damsleth/tap/owa-tools
Quickstart
# 1. One-time auth setup (opens Edge, signs you in, captures a refresh token)
owa-piggy setup --profile work --email you@yourcompany.com
# 2. Verify it works
owa-piggy status
# 3. Use the token
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $(owa-piggy)" https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me
For the Outlook REST audience:
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $(owa-piggy --audience outlook)" \
"https://outlook.office.com/api/v2.0/me/messages?\$top=1" | jq -r '.value[0].Subject'
Raw token on stdout, logs on stderr - pipe-friendly by design.
CLI surface
owa-piggy <command> [options]
Bare owa-piggy is shorthand for owa-piggy token - the access token goes to stdout, nothing else.
| command | what it does |
|---|---|
token (default) |
print access token to stdout (default audience: Microsoft Graph) |
status |
compact ISO8601 health summary; all profiles if --profile omitted; --json emits token health without token values |
debug |
full setup diagnostics for one profile |
setup |
interactive first-time setup; creates the profile if new |
reseed |
fetch a fresh refresh token headlessly from the Edge sidecar |
decode |
print JWT header and payload of the current access token |
remaining |
print minutes remaining on the current access token |
audiences |
list all known FOCI-accessible audiences |
profiles |
list profiles (TTY: interactive picker); --json emits aliases and config presence |
profiles list |
non-interactive list (alias of bare profiles without the picker); --json emits the registry doc - use this in scripts |
profiles set-default A |
make A the default profile; --json emits an action envelope |
profiles delete A |
remove profile A's config + Edge sidecar dir; --force to override default-pointer guard, --yes to bypass TTY confirmation (required in non-TTY), --json for action envelope |
install-owa-tools |
shorthand for brew install damsleth/tap/owa-tools (the companion suite) |
version |
print version information; --json emits {"tool": ..., "version": ...} |
Top-level flags: --version, --help. Per-command options (--profile <alias>, --audience <name>, --scope <explicit>) are accepted on the bare invocation too, because it's rewritten to owa-piggy token <opts>. --audience is validated against the known list at parse time, so typos error out with the full audience set instead of silently using the default. Per-command help: owa-piggy <command> --help.
Machine surface
owa-piggy exposes the same introspection/agent surface as the owa-tools consumer CLIs, so one agent can drive the whole suite uniformly:
| invocation | what it does |
|---|---|
owa-piggy schema |
JSON command schema (tool, suite, schema_version, commands) |
owa-piggy schema <cmd> |
schema for one command |
owa-piggy --help --json |
the same schema via the help flag |
owa-piggy --agent <cmd> |
wrap JSON stdout in a stable {"_owa": …, "data": …} envelope (or OWA_AGENT=1); non-interactive commands only |
owa-piggy --err-json <cmd> |
structured JSON error on stderr (or OWA_ERR_JSON=1) |
owa-piggy --doctor [--json] |
hugr health/redaction doctor payload |
Examples
owa-piggy # Graph token (default audience)
owa-piggy --audience outlook # Outlook REST audience
owa-piggy --audience teams # Teams audience
owa-piggy remaining # minutes left on current token
owa-piggy token --json | jq .scope # inspect granted scopes
eval $(owa-piggy token --env) # export ACCESS_TOKEN= / EXPIRES_IN=
owa-piggy status # compact ISO8601 health summary
owa-piggy status --json # machine-readable health, no token values
owa-piggy profiles list # non-interactive list (safe in scripts)
owa-piggy profiles list --json # machine-readable profile registry
owa-piggy debug # full setup diagnostics
owa-piggy --version # print version
owa-piggy version --json # machine-readable version
Pipe-friendly - raw token goes to stdout, everything else to stderr:
# Fetch calendar events via Graph
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $(owa-piggy)" \
"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me/events" | jq .
# Use in scripts
TOKEN=$(owa-piggy)
az rest --headers "Authorization=Bearer $TOKEN" --url "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me"
Default audience is Microsoft Graph, which covers everything Outlook REST exposes plus OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, directory, and more. Override persistently with OWA_DEFAULT_AUDIENCE=<short-name-or-https-url>, or per-call with --audience <name> (see owa-piggy audiences) or --scope <explicit>.
How?
OWA (One Outlook Web) is registered in Azure AD as a public SPA client with ID 9199bf20-a13f-4107-85dc-02114787ef48. Public clients require no client secret. SPA refresh tokens live in your browser's localStorage and can be exchanged at Microsoft's standard OAuth2 token endpoint - the only requirement is that the request includes the Origin header AAD expects for SPA clients.
The token comes back with a broad set of delegated scopes: Calendars.ReadWrite, Mail.ReadWrite, Files.ReadWrite, and more. OWA is also a FOCI (Family of Client IDs) member, so the same refresh token works against outlook.office.com, graph.microsoft.com, and other Microsoft first-party APIs.
| Token | Lifetime |
|---|---|
| Access token | ~60-90 min from issue |
| Refresh token | 24h sliding window (rotates on use) AND 24h absolute hard-cap from original sign-in |
The sliding window renews on every exchange. The hard-cap does not - after 24h AAD returns AADSTS700084 and the token is unrecoverable via rotation. The launchd agent handles the sliding window; owa-piggy reseed handles the hard-cap.
The rotated refresh token is saved automatically to ~/.config/owa-piggy/profiles/<alias>/config after every exchange (only when the token originally came from the config file - env-only callers keep env-only semantics and get a rotation notice on stderr). Install a LaunchAgent per profile to keep each sliding window fresh without thinking about it:
./scripts/setup-refresh.sh --profile default # one profile
./scripts/setup-refresh.sh --all # every configured profile
The agents run hourly via launchd's StartCalendarInterval and, unlike cron, fire on wake for any hour that was missed while the Mac was asleep - so an overnight-closed laptop still rotates each profile's token before the 24h sliding window closes.
Automated reseed (24h hard-cap recovery)
Because hourly rotation only keeps the sliding window alive, you still hit AADSTS700084 after 24h of continuous use. owa-piggy reseed is the automated recovery path - it drives a sidecar Edge profile via the Chrome DevTools Protocol, extracts a fresh FOCI refresh token from MSAL's localStorage, and pipes it into owa-piggy setup.
One-time setup of the sidecar profile (per alias):
alias=default # or work, personal, client-x ...
dir="$HOME/.config/owa-piggy/profiles/$alias/edge-profile"
mkdir -p "$dir"
/Applications/Microsoft\ Edge.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft\ Edge \
--user-data-dir="$dir" \
https://outlook.cloud.microsoft
# sign in, then close Edge
Thereafter:
owa-piggy reseed --profile $alias
The scraper detects stale caches (ID token JWT iat > 23h old), forces a Page.reload if MSAL gets wedged, and if session cookies have also expired it reopens Edge visibly so you can sign in interactively and then scrapes again automatically. When things work the whole thing is silent and takes a second or two.
The AADSTS700084 error message from the normal flow also prints hint: run owa-piggy reseed so you don't need to remember the recipe.
Mechanism hierarchy
Five token-acquisition mechanisms, ordered from least to most intrusive. owa-piggy walks this ladder so the silent paths run first and you only see a browser window when nothing cheaper works.
| # | Mechanism | When it runs | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pure HTTP POST /oauth2/v2.0/token (curl-equivalent) |
Every owa-piggy token call. Trades RT for AT; AAD also rotates the RT in the response. |
owa_piggy/oauth.py |
| 2 | Headless Edge - legacy MSAL scrape | reseed for profiles without OWA_AUTH_MODE=capture. Defaults to --headless=new, reads MSAL localStorage. |
scripts/reseed-from-edge.sh (HEADLESS=1) |
| 3 | Headless Edge - network capture via CDP | reseed for profiles with OWA_AUTH_MODE=capture (encrypted MSAL cache, e.g. Okta-federated). Intercepts the /oauth2/v2.0/token response off the wire. |
owa_piggy/capture.py (default headless) |
| 4 | Offscreen non-headless Edge | Fallback when headless is blocked by Conditional Access / device-compliance. Window parked at -32000,-32000. |
OWA_RESEED_HEADLESS=0 or OWA_CAPTURE_HEADLESS=0; automatic on headless_blocked |
| 5 | Visible Edge | TTY only. Triggered when sidecar cookies expired or AAD rejected the scraped RT (AADSTS700084 after scrape). | visible_signin() / capture.capture_signin() |
Only step 1 runs continuously. Steps 2-5 fire on owa-piggy reseed, which is needed when the RT itself is dead (24h SPA hard-cap). Under launchd (no TTY) step 5 is never reached - the reseed bails with an error logged to the per-profile refresh.log and the user must re-run interactively. See .docs/headless-blocked-by-ca.md for tenant-specific causes that drop the flow to step 4 or 5.
Diagnostics
owa-piggy status --profile work
profile: work
authtoken: expires 2026-04-20T11:46:51Z (1h24m)
refreshtoken: expires 2026-04-21T09:30:00Z (22h38m)
audience: graph (https://graph.microsoft.com)
scopes: default(26)
launchd: true
Without --profile, status reports every configured profile in a stanza per alias. Prints no valid token (exit 1) and an ERROR: line on stderr if the live probe fails for a profile. The refresh-token expiry is the 24h hard-cap, computed from OWA_RT_ISSUED_AT which is stamped on setup and reseed (setups from before this field landed will show unknown until the next reseed). scopes: collapses to default(N) for the default scope set; an explicit --scope request prints the granted scope list verbatim. launchd: shows whether a per-profile LaunchAgent is bootstrapped.
owa-piggy status --json returns the machine-readable shape consumed by hugr doctor and other suite tools: one object per profile with state (ok|fail|disabled), access_token.expires_at, refresh_token.expires_at, and hints[].
owa-piggy debug
Full triage dump: config file state, RT shape, live exchange probe, access-token claims (aud/scp/exp/iat), launchd agent status (gui/<uid>/<label> bootstrap, runs, last exit code), PATH install, Edge sidecar profile presence, reseed script discoverability. Also warns about leftover legacy cron entries.
Security model
This tool deliberately operates within the boundaries of what Microsoft allows for public SPA clients:
- No credentials stored in Azure - there is no app registration to compromise
- Delegated permissions only - the token acts as you, with your existing access, nothing more
- Standard OAuth2 token exchange - no browser automation in the hot path, no cookie theft, no undocumented APIs
- Your session, your token - the refresh token is the same one OWA already stores in your browser; this tool just makes it usable from the terminal
The token is scoped to your user identity. A password change or admin revocation invalidates it immediately - the same as it would in the browser.
See SECURITY.md for the full threat model and known failure modes.
Per-profile config lives at ~/.config/owa-piggy/profiles/<alias>/config, mode 0600:
OWA_REFRESH_TOKEN="1.AQ..."
OWA_TENANT_ID="xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
OWA_RT_ISSUED_AT="2026-04-19T10:15:00Z"
A small registry at ~/.config/owa-piggy/profiles.conf tracks which profiles exist and which is the default.
Writes are atomic (temp file + fsync + rename) so a crash mid-rotation cannot corrupt the only live token. Environment variables take precedence over the config file:
OWA_REFRESH_TOKEN,OWA_TENANT_ID- override the corresponding config values (whenOWA_REFRESH_TOKENis env-supplied, rotated tokens are kept env-only and not written back to disk)OWA_CLIENT_ID- override the default OWA client IDOWA_DEFAULT_AUDIENCE- change the default audience (a short name fromowa-piggy audienceslikeoutlook, or a full https URL). Command-line--audience/--scopestill wins.OWA_PROFILE- select the active profile, overridingOWA_DEFAULT_PROFILE. Equivalent to--profile <alias>.OWA_AUTH_MODE- stamped on the profile config bysetup(scrapefor legacy MSAL paste flow,capturefor the network-capture flow used by encrypted-MSAL / Okta-federated tenants).reseedbranches on this to pick the right mechanism.OWA_EMAIL- account hint stamped on the profile whensetup --emailis used; reseed validates captured tokens against it.OWA_RT_ISSUED_AT- ISO-8601 timestamp written on everysetup/reseed. Drives the refresh-token hard-cap calculation instatus.OWA_RESEED_HEADLESS=0,OWA_CAPTURE_HEADLESS=0- escape hatches for tenants whose Conditional Access blocks headless Edge. Drop the reseed/capture flow to an offscreen non-headless window (mechanism step 4 in the hierarchy table above).
Multiple profiles
owa-piggy supports multiple independent tenants / identities via named profiles. Each profile gets its own config, access-token cache, Edge sidecar userdata dir, and launchd job, so a broken reseed on one profile does not knock out the others.
owa-piggy setup --profile work # create a new profile
owa-piggy setup --profile personal # ...and another
owa-piggy --profile work # raw token for 'work'
OWA_PROFILE=work owa-piggy # same, via env
owa-piggy profiles # list (TTY: interactive picker)
owa-piggy profiles list # non-interactive list (scripts, CI)
owa-piggy profiles list --json # machine-readable registry
owa-piggy profiles set-default work # change the default pointer
owa-piggy status --profile personal # health check, per profile
owa-piggy reseed --profile work # recover one profile after 24h
owa-piggy profiles delete personal # remove a profile (config + Edge)
./scripts/setup-refresh.sh --all # install a plist for each profile
Selection precedence when --profile is omitted: OWA_PROFILE env var > OWA_DEFAULT_PROFILE in profiles.conf > lone profile on disk > default on fresh installs. If multiple profiles exist but none is marked default, the command errors out rather than guessing.
Legacy single-config installs auto-migrate on first run: ~/.config/owa-piggy/{config,cache.json,edge-profile} move into profiles/default/ atomically and a profiles.conf is written that marks default as the active profile. The legacy launchd plist (com.damsleth.owa-piggy) keeps running until you re-install via ./scripts/setup-refresh.sh --all, which replaces it with per-profile plists labelled com.damsleth.owa-piggy.<alias>.
Caveats
- Seed from Microsoft Edge. Edge integrates with Microsoft's native SSO broker and stores a real FOCI refresh token (
1.AQ...) in MSAL's cache.secretfield. Plain Chromium browsers (Vivaldi, Brave, Chrome) fall back to a lighter flow that stores a session-bound opaque token at.datawhich AAD rejects as malformed (AADSTS9002313). That's also why those browsers log you out of OWA more often - the session token has a shorter fuse. - Requires an account with OWA access (Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online)
- Uses a Microsoft first-party client ID - fine for personal tooling, not for production services or anything you'd ship to other users
- Refresh tokens are bound to your session; admin revocation or a password change will invalidate them
owa-piggy reseedis macOS + Edge specific (uses--user-data-dirprofile isolation and Chrome DevTools Protocol). The manualsetupflow works everywhere.
Disclaimer
This is a personal CLI tool for people who understand OAuth tokens and their risks.
If you don't know why storing a refresh token on disk might be a bad idea you should not use this.
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