Service Users (beta)

Service users are programmatic accounts that allow automated systems to interact with Modal. They’re ideal for CI/CD pipelines, automated deployments, and other workflows that need to authenticate.

Create a Service User 

Service users are only available for shared workspaces. You will need workspace owner or manager privileges to create service users.

To create a service user:

1. Go to your workspace tokens settings page
2. Click New Service User
3. Enter a name for your service user (must be lowercase alphanumeric, can contain hyphens or underscores)
4. Click Create

After creation, you’ll see the MODAL_TOKEN_ID and MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET. This is the only time you can view the token secret for security reasons.

Use Service User Tokens 

Set the service user credentials as environment variables in your automated environment:

export MODAL_TOKEN_ID=your-token-id
export MODAL_TOKEN_SECRET=your-token-secret

Once configured, you can use Modal’s CLI and Python SDK as usual:

modal deploy your_app.py

Delete a Service User 

To remove a service user:

1. Go to the tokens settings page
2. Find the service user in the table
3. Click Delete when you hover over the row

Permissions 

Service users have the same permissions as workspace members. They cannot do actions that are only permitted for a workspace owner or manager. To learn more about members, managers, and owners, see this workspace section.