A JSON Web Token (JWT) is an open standard (RFC 7519) that defines a compact and self-contained way for securely transmitting information between parties as a JSON object.
Anatomy of a JWT
A JWT consists of three parts separated by dots (.): Header, Payload, and Signature. The payload contains claims about an entity (typically, the user) and additional metadata.
Stateless Authentication
Because JWTs are self-contained, servers do not need to maintain session states in memory or databases, allowing stateless scalability across cloud microservices.