How do I get the personal access token name using the Tableau REST API

I am creating an application to interact with Tableau's REST API.

I am using Tableaus Online Server to host the workbooks/groups/users etc.

What I need is a way to let a user sign in and then interact with the REST API without having to store a username and password for server authentication.

Currently, if someone wanted to get a list of workbooks, they would need the following code

import tableauserverclient as TSC

tableau_auth = TSC.TableauAuth('USERNAME', 'PASSWORD', site_id='CONTENTURL')
server = TSC.Server('https://SERVER_URL', use_server_version=True)
server.auth.sign_in(tableau_auth)

Tableau does use personal access tokens and I can authenticate like this

import tableauserverclient as TSC

tableau_auth = TSC.PersonalAccessTokenAuth('TOKEN-NAME', 'TOKEN-VALUE', site_id='CONTENTURL')
server = TSC.Server('https://SERVER_URL', use_server_version=True)
server.auth.sign_in(tableau_auth)

The problem I am running into is that signing in with a username and password only returns a token value. I don't think this is meant to be the same as the personal access token, but can I use this token value to authenticate the user and do other actions with the REST API?

The structure of the signin response is

{
  credentials: {
    site: {id: ...},
    user: {id: ...},
    token: tokenValue   
  }
}

You can also create a personal access token manually on the tableau online server. Is there a way to get this value after signing in with a username and password?

Solution

Okay, so I kinda figured it out like a few minutes after posting this. And if anyone else gets a little confused when working with the Tableau REST API and their authentication, I hope this helps a little bit.

There is a python package called tableauserverclient and it's supposed to make interacting with the REST API easier. It does, except I don't believe there is a way to pass values to the header of the request. Which is how they manage the access tokens after signing in (and the personal access token is a completely separate thing).

So, when a user signs in, they receive an access token that can be used later to authenticate other services. But, the token needs to be passed in the header as the X-Tableau-Auth value.

So, while the TSC library simplifies and python-izes some of the requests, it doesn't allow you to utilize the access token from sign in.