CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptgoogle-calendar-apigithub-pages
Andrew
Andrew

Reputation: 1

Google Calendar API key embedded in JS?

I'm writing an app in JS that fetches Google Calendar events using Google Calendar API. I've already generated an API Key and Client ID - do I have to do something to try and 'secure' them? Their tutorial puts them directly in the JS file (https://developers.google.com/calendar/quickstart/js), but then I dig further into the dev docs (https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/api-keys#securing_an_api_key) and it says not to embed the API key into the code...but that could just be for paid API keys?

I'm writing this mini webapp for a class so I only need it to work for like 6 weeks. I'm hosting it via GitHub Pages, and it was the one that alerted me about the API Key when I pushed the code.

Bottom line - is it safe for me to embed the API key into the JS code that gets pushed to github and made publicly available (so I can have just a frontend and use GitHub Pages)? Or do I need to take some kind of preventative measures?

Thanks in advance!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 497

Answers (1)

Linda Lawton - DaImTo
Linda Lawton - DaImTo

Reputation: 116968

Api key is only used for accessing public data. For example you could use it to access the Google Calendar public holiday calendars. That being said yes you should keep your api key secrete and not share it but google is aware that this is not possible with client side languages like JavaScript so i have never heard of anyone getting in trouble for leaking their api key by having it in a JavaScript application.

This warning is mainly means that you should not put it in a GitHub open source repository that anyone can download and then run. You must instruct people how to create their own.

That being said if you are trying to access private user data then you should be using Oauth2 to authenticate your users and this you can lock down to only your domain due to the need for a redirect uri. As you say you have created a client id i suspect that you have already done that. Apikey in the javascript code isnt strictly needed if you have added the client id for oauth2.

Upvotes: 2

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