> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.forest.app/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Authentication, Filtering & Sorting ## Get authenticated to the Zendesk API You first need to generate an authentication token to access the Zendesk API. We are going to use the basic authentication mechanism. [More details provided here](https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/support/introduction#security-and-authentication). \ \ The 2 parameters required are: a user email (agent) that is allowed to access Zendesk, and the API Key that you can retrieve from the Zendesk console: These 2 parameters can be environment variables like this;