# mpdavis/python-jose

A JOSE implementation in Python

Repository: https://github.com/mpdavis/python-jose
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/python-jose
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: python, jose, jwt
Last push: 2026-04-14T00:39:48+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 60/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 77, release rhythm 16, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4153, "days_push": 142, "days_rel": 462, "gap_med": 102, "n_releases_24m": 2}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1756, forks 267 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:32.169296+00:00)

## What it is
python-jose is a Python implementation of the JOSE (JavaScript Object Signing and Encryption) standards, including JWS, JWE, JWK, and JWT. It lets applications sign, encrypt, and verify JSON content using pluggable cryptographic backends such as pyca/cryptography, pycryptodome, or a native-Python fallback.

## Use cases
- encode and decode JWTs for API authentication
- sign and verify JSON web tokens with HS256 or RS256
- encrypt payloads using JWE
- validate tokens issued by an OAuth/OIDC identity provider
- generate and manage JSON web keys (JWK)
- implement stateless session tokens in a Python web app

## When to choose
- you need full JOSE support (JWS, JWE, JWK) beyond plain JWT signing
- you want a choice of cryptographic backends like cryptography or pycryptodome
- you need to verify third-party identity provider tokens in Python

## When to avoid
- you only need simple JWT encoding/decoding and prefer a lighter library like PyJWT
- you need a library with frequent security patches and active maintenance
- you are not working in Python

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: auth, cryptography, security, serialization
- domain: security, web-development, developer-tools
- platform: python, cross-platform
- tags: jwt, jose, jws, jwe, jwk, token-signing, oauth

## Member repositories
- mpdavis/python-jose (main) score 60

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:32.169296+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:27:52.676121+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mpdavis/python-jose (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:32.169296+00:00, sha 64551fcbd70d)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/python-jose/json (fetched 2026-08-29T11:05:54.818857+00:00, sha 742ff85be0e3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.