We are wondering if there's another way to authenticate the managed identity with DefaultAzureCredential?

It seems as of now there is no alternative way to do that.

managed_identity_client_id : The client ID of a user-assigned managed identity. Defaults to the value of the environment variable AZURE_CLIENT_ID, if any. If not specified, a system-assigned identity will be used.

You can refer to DefaultAzureCredential(managed_identity_client_id) and Determine client id of user-assigned managed identity at runtime?

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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › python › api › azure-identity › azure.identity.defaultazurecredential
azure.identity.DefaultAzureCredential class | Microsoft Learn
For more information, See Usage guidance for DefaultAzureCredential. The identity it uses depends on the environment. When an access token is needed, it requests one using these identities in turn, stopping when one provides a token: A service principal configured by environment variables. See EnvironmentCredential for more details. WorkloadIdentityCredential if environment variable configuration is set by the Azure workload identity webhook. An Azure managed identity.
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › python › api › overview › azure › identity-readme
Azure Identity client library for Python | Microsoft Learn
Managed identity authentication is supported either indirectly via DefaultAzureCredential or directly via ManagedIdentityCredential for the following Azure services:
Discussions

azure - Alternative approach to specify user managed identities with DefaultAzureCredential in python SDK - Stack Overflow
We are trying to authenticate DefaultAzureCredential using azure user-assigned managed identities with python SDK. The approach we see is to specify the client id as below, following the python SDK More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
How to use User-Managed Identity from Azure Cloud Function (python) in making a request to Azure KeyVault? - Stack Overflow
To get the client_id, navigate ... identity -> copy the client_id. ... Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments. ... I have tried this approach also, If you see the comment(python comment) in my function. It did not worked. 2019-11-11T09:21:53.377Z+00:00 ... For anyone who is using the "DefaultAzureCredential" class instead of the "ManagedIdentityCredential" class, this ... More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
How to check which credential Azure python SDK class DefaultAzureCredential is using for login - Stack Overflow
I'm using Azure SDK for python in the machine learning env and to create a Workspace instance I'm using the following code. from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential from azureml.core import More on stackoverflow.com
🌐 stackoverflow.com
How to solve 'DefaultAzureCredential failed to retrieve a token' error?
Where are you telling your app to use the user assigned managed identity? More on reddit.com
🌐 r/AZURE
4
2
November 7, 2024
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PyPI
pypi.org › project › azure-identity
azure-identity · PyPI
6 days ago - AzureCliCredential.get_token correctly ... ... DefaultAzureCredential allows specifying the client ID of a user-assigned managed identity via keyword argument managed_identity_client_id (#12991)...
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OneUptime
oneuptime.com › home › blog › how to authenticate with azure services using azure-identity
How to Authenticate with Azure Services Using azure-identity
February 16, 2026 - If you prefer to use Visual Studio Code's Azure Resources extension, that works too when the azure-identity-broker package is installed. DefaultAzureCredential checks the VS Code credential as part of its chain. In production, you typically ...
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GitHub
github.com › oneuptime › blog › tree › master › posts › 2026-02-16-authenticate-azure-services-azure-identity-defaultazurecredential-python
blog/posts/2026-02-16-authenticate-azure-services-azure-identity-defaultazurecredential-python at master · OneUptime/blog · GitHub
If you prefer to use Visual Studio Code's Azure Resources extension, that works too when the azure-identity-broker package is installed. DefaultAzureCredential checks the VS Code credential as part of its chain. In production, you typically want to use Managed Identity.
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Thomas Stringer
trstringer.com › authenticate-python-to-azure
Authenticate to Azure from Python | Thomas Stringer
February 28, 2021 - One of the really great and easy things that was introduced in the Azure Python SDK is the DefaultAzureCredential helper class. It is a great single solution for all of your authentication requirements because it tries five different sources of authentication. They are, in order: Environment variables (AZURE_CLIENT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET, AZURE_TENANT_ID, and more) Managed identity - if you are running your Python code in an Azure VM, web app, AKS cluster, or any other compute that supports managed identities, it will choose this for authentication
Find elsewhere
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › azure › developer › python › sdk › authentication › credential-chains
Credential chains in the Azure Identity library for Python - Python on Azure | Microsoft Learn
January 15, 2026 - For example, when running on a local development machine, managed identity is unavailable. Consequently, ManagedIdentityCredential always fails in the local development environment, unless explicitly disabled via its corresponding exclude-prefixed property. Unpredictable behavior: DefaultAzureCredential checks for the presence of certain environment variables.
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Windows
azuresdkdocs.z19.web.core.windows.net › python › azure-identity › latest › index.html
Azure Identity client library for Python — Azure SDK for Python 2.0.0 documentation
To configure DefaultAzureCredential to authenticate a user-assigned managed identity, use the managed_identity_client_id keyword argument:
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Medium
gabrielgomes61320.medium.com › microsoft-identity-library-deep-dive-e79c5d38109c
Microsoft Identity library Deep Dive | by Gabriel Gomes, PhD | Medium
December 18, 2023 - The most interesting aspect about using DefaultAzureCredential is that: the Python code of the Application layer does not need to change if the underlying authentication method changes (for instance, if we suddenly change from a environment variable-based authentication method to an Azure CLI-based authentication method, there is no need to change any part of the Python code, if we use the DefaultAzureCredential class). This happens because the authentication process logic is managed at the most internal layer of the Azure Identity library, not at the Application outer layer.
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-us › python › api › azure-identity › azure.identity.aio.defaultazurecredential
azure.identity.aio.DefaultAzureCredential class | Microsoft Learn
See https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/credential-chains#usage-guidance-for-defaultazurecredential. The identity it uses depends on the environment. When an access token is needed, it requests one using these identities in turn, stopping when one provides a token: A service principal configured by environment variables. See EnvironmentCredential for more details. WorkloadIdentityCredential if environment variable configuration is set by the Azure workload identity webhook. An Azure managed identity.
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MCP Servers
mcpservers.org › home › claude skills & agent skills library › azure-identity-py
azure-identity-py | Claude Skills & Agent Skills Library
Azure Identity SDK for Python authentication with Microsoft Entra ID. Use for DefaultAzureCredential, managed identity, service principals, and token caching.
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Windows
azuresdkdocs.z19.web.core.windows.net › python › azure-identity › 1.22.0 › _modules › azure › identity › _credentials › default.html
azure.identity._credentials.default — Azure SDK for Python 2.0.0 documentation
Defaults to **False**. :keyword bool exclude_environment_credential: Whether to exclude a service principal configured by environment variables from the credential. Defaults to **False**. :keyword bool exclude_managed_identity_credential: Whether to exclude managed identity from the credential.
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GitHub
github.com › Azure › azure-sdk-for-python › blob › main › sdk › identity › azure-identity › README.md
azure-sdk-for-python/sdk/identity/azure-identity/README.md at main · Azure/azure-sdk-for-python · GitHub
Managed identity authentication is supported either indirectly via DefaultAzureCredential or directly via ManagedIdentityCredential for the following Azure services:
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GitHub
github.com › Azure › azure-sdk-for-python › blob › main › sdk › identity › azure-identity › azure › identity › _credentials › default.py
azure-sdk-for-python/sdk/identity/azure-identity/azure/identity/_credentials/default.py at main · Azure/azure-sdk-for-python · GitHub
If unset or empty, DefaultAzureCredential · will raise a `ValueError`. Defaults to **False**. ... def __init__(self, **kwargs: Any) -> None: # pylint: disable=too-many-statements, too-many-locals ... workload_identity_client_id = kwargs.pop("workload_identity_client_id", managed_identity_client_id)
🌐
Luke
luke.geek.nz › azure › authenticating-azureopenai-python
Authenticating Azure OpenAI with Managed Identity | luke.geek.nz
December 8, 2024 - This article covers authenticating ... Identities via an environment variable. The key class for Azure authentication is DefaultAzureCredential from the Azure Identity library....
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/azure › how to solve 'defaultazurecredential failed to retrieve a token' error?
r/AZURE on Reddit: How to solve 'DefaultAzureCredential failed to retrieve a token' error?
November 7, 2024 -

Hi

I have deployed a docker image in my azure app service and I am using below code to connect my key vault:

credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
client = SecretClient(vault_url=KV_URI, credential=credential)
secret = client.get_secret(secret_name)

But I am getting this error:

ERROR:root:Error fetching secrets from key vault : DefaultAzureCredential failed to retrieve a token from the included credentials.
Attempted credentials:
EnvironmentCredential: EnvironmentCredential authentication unavailable. Environment variables are not fully configured.
Visit https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/environmentcredential/troubleshoot to troubleshoot this issue.
ManagedIdentityCredential: ManagedIdentityCredential authentication unavailable, no response from the IMDS endpoint.
SharedTokenCacheCredential: SharedTokenCacheCredential authentication unavailable. No accounts were found in the cache.
AzureCliCredential: Please run 'az login' to set up an account
AzurePowerShellCredential: PowerShell is not installed
AzureDeveloperCliCredential: Azure Developer CLI could not be found. Please visit  for installation instructions and then,once installed, authenticate to your Azure account using 'azd auth login'.https://aka.ms/azsdk/python/identity/environmentcredential/troubleshoothttps://aka.ms/azure-dev

I have created a user assigned managed identity, assigned that UAMI to my app service, provided 'key vault secret user' access to that UAMI.

Also, the same code and access are working on QA environment but not on UAT so I am unable to find the core problem.

Can anyone please help me with this?

Thanks

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Skills
skills.rest › home › software engineering › azure-identity-py
azure-identity-py: Authenticate Python applications to Azure services using DefaultAzureCredential | skills.rest
August 27, 2026 - Yes, you can use managed identity for Azure authentication in Python cloud deployments by using DefaultAzureCredential, which seamlessly integrates managed identity alongside environment and service principal methods.