Attempting to update deployment variables through API with a token fails.

[Brian_Daniels]

We are trying to update some tooling we have to set repo and deployment variables through the api to use API tokens instead of app passwords in light of their deprecation.

This works fine for repo variables, but when we try to set a deployment variable through the /deployments_config/environments/(env_uuid)/variables/ API call it returns a 403 error of 'This API is not accessible by this authentication mechanism'.

Calling the same endpoint with an app password works and updates the variable.  The token has a scope of read:pipeline:bitbucket and admin:pipeline:bitbucket.

How can we update these when authenticating using an API token?

[Ben · Accepted solution]

Hi @Brian_Daniels 

The correct minimum scope to update a variable (edit/delete/create) is admin:pipeline:bitbucket as I've just tested it on my end and I was able to successfully query the API.

You may be using the wrong format for the cURL command, you'll need to use basic auth with your email as the username (same email you use to login to Bitbucket) and the API token as the password, for example:

curl --request POST \
--url https://api.bitbucket.org/2.0/repositories/{workspaceID}/{reposlug}/deployments_config/environments/{uuid}/variables \
--user {youremailaddress}:{yourAPIToken} \
}'

You can find more info on using API tokens at the link below:

• https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/using-api-tokens/

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)

[Brian_Daniels]

Thank you, I traced the problem to the tooling using the v1 api url in some places, which returns the error.  Replacing it with the v2 url corrected the issue.

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

@Brian_Daniels I found an article in which the author works with the same end-point like you, and it seems he is also using the pipeline:variable scope. Maybe you need this, or there is a similar scope for environments, it might worth a research...

https://medium.com/@matiasquin/devops-wizardry-turning-bitbucket-variable-chaos-into-automation-bliss-18f392f89a70