3.1 Providing Your Credentials

Pinboard API callers may authenticate using the HTTP Basic Authentication scheme with the credentials provided in the URL (i.e. ‘https://username:password@api.pinboard.in/v1/method’) or with an API key provided in the query parameters (i.e. ‘https://api.pinboard.in/v1/method?auth_token=user:NNNNNN’). Given the obvious security concerns in the former, pin only supports the latter. You can find your API key here once you’ve signed-up & logged-in.

You can provide that token to pin in one of the following three ways:

  1. Specify it in the --token global option
  2. Specify it in the PINBOARD_API_TOKEN environment variable
  3. Specify it in your configuration file. If you choose this root, you should be careful to set the file permission on that file appropriately (600, for instance).

Instapaper credentials may be provided as parameters to the send sub-command, in the environment variables INSTAPAPER_USERNAME and INSTAPAPER_PASSWORD or in the configuration file (see The Configuration File).