Overview

Control who sees your documentation and customize their experience

Pro plans include password authentication.

Enterprise plans include all authentication methods.

Choose from three approaches to manage access and customize your documentation based on user information and your security needs:

• Full authentication: Complete privacy protection for all content with full content customization.
• Partial authentication: Page-by-page access control with full content customization.
• Personalization: Content customization with no security guarantees. All content remains publicly accessible.

Use case examples

Choose full authentication when:

• Building internal company documentation that contains sensitive information
• Documenting proprietary APIs that require user verification
• Creating customer-specific implementation guides

Choose partial authentication when:

• Offering public getting-started guides with private advanced features
• Running a freemium product where premium users get additional documentation
• Publishing open-source docs with private enterprise sections

Choose personalization when:

• Creating public API documentation that shows user-specific examples
• Building marketing sites that customize content based on user profiles
• Offering public tutorials that adapt to user preferences or skill levels

Handshake methods

Choose the method that best fits your existing infrastructure and security requirements.

Method	Available for	Setup complexity	Best for
JWT	All approaches	Medium	Custom login flows, maximum security control
OAuth 2.0	All approaches	High	Third-party auth providers, enterprise security
Mintlify Dashboard	Authentication only	Low	Teams already using Mintlify dashboard
Password	Authentication only	Low	Simple shared access without personalization
Shared Session	Personalization only	Low	Apps with existing session-based auth

When to use each method

JWT: Use when you have an existing authentication system and want full control over the login flow. Ideal for custom user management or when you need to decouple documentation access from your main application.

OAuth 2.0: Use when you want to leverage third-party authentication providers (Google, GitHub, etc.) or need enterprise-grade security standards. Best for organizations already using OAuth infrastructure.

Mintlify Dashboard: Use when your documentation editors are also your documentation readers. Perfect for internal teams who already manage content through the Mintlify dashboard.

Password: Use for simple access control when you don’t need to track individual users or personalize content. Good for contractors, beta users, or temporary access scenarios.

Shared Session: Use when you want seamless login between your application and documentation. Ideal when users are already authenticated in your main application and you want to personalize their documentation experience.

Content customization

All three approaches support content personalization features including dynamic MDX content, API key prefilling, and page visibility controls. For detailed implementation guidance, see Personalization setup.