Why am I unable to sign out using devise_token_auth and curl?

Answering my own question, I wasn't returning certain sign_in response header values correctly with the sign_out request.

I found a related post which pointed out some of the critical headers. The trick is to capture the access-token, client, and uid header values from the sign_in response, then include them as parameters in the sign_out request:

curl -i -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/api/v1/auth/sign_out -F access-token="Ae1yaTYLkSAgdhz3LtPAZg" -F client="9AmYF6NS8tP6EOD5nPSuxw" -F uid="user@nowhere.org"

Here's an RSpec test to illustrate and verify:

require 'rails_helper'RSpec.describe "Authentication", type: :request do  it "logs a user out" do    user = User.create!(      name: "Some Dude",       email: "user@nowhere.org",      password: "password",       confirmed_at: Date.today    )    # initial sign in to generate a token and response    post api_v1_user_session_path, {      email: user.email,       password: user.password    }    expect(user.reload.tokens.count).to eq 1    # sign out request using header values from sign in response    delete destroy_api_v1_user_session_path, {      "access-token": response.header["access-token"],       client: response.header["client"],       uid: response.header["uid"]    }    response_body = JSON.load(response.body)    expect(response_body["errors"]).to be_blank    expect(response.status).to eq 200    # user token should be deleted following sign out    expect(user.reload.tokens.count).to eq 0  endend

In details, do the following steps:

Step 1:

curl -v -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/v1/auth/sign_in -d "{\"email\":\"user@example.com\",\"password\":\"password\"}"

You'll get a response like this:

*   Trying ::1...* Connected to localhost (::1) port 3000 (#0)> POST /api/v1/auth/sign_in HTTP/1.1> Host: localhost:3000> User-Agent: curl/7.43.0> Content-Type: application/json> Accept: application/json> Content-Length: 50>* upload completely sent off: 50 out of 50 bytes< HTTP/1.1 200 OK< X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN< X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block< X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff< Access-Token: BqXcWQi0-9faLyxP1LnUKw< Token-Type: Bearer< Client: dYSqVgM9VT6fV9Y5MFWpJQ< Expiry: 1465679853< Uid: user@example.com< Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8< Etag: W/"9ad6a23f014a744a7ec83b4e0e9d27aa"< Cache-Control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidate< X-Request-Id: 6566bd38-1ad7-491a-a1ab-e41458b9b704< X-Runtime: 0.184807< Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/2.3.0/2015-12-25)< Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 21:17:33 GMT< Content-Length: 135< Connection: Keep-Alive<* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact{"data":{"id":6,"provider":"email","uid":"user@example.com","name":"testuser","nickname":null,"image":null,"email":"user@example.com"}}%

Step 2:

Now, you want to sign the user out.

curl -i -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/api/v1/auth/sign_out -F access-token="BqXcWQi0-9faLyxP1LnUKw" -F client="dYSqVgM9VT6fV9Y5MFWpJQ" -F uid="user@example.com"

You'll get a response like this:

HTTP/1.1 200 OKX-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGINX-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=blockX-Content-Type-Options: nosniffContent-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8Etag: W/"7363e85fe9edee6f053a4b319588c086"Cache-Control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidateX-Request-Id: 8f7a297a-6a72-4c9d-a210-48c29fb4bfe0X-Runtime: 0.095060Server: WEBrick/1.3.1 (Ruby/2.3.0/2015-12-25)Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 21:19:18 GMTContent-Length: 16Connection: Keep-Alive{"success":true}%

In step 2, I've added the access-token and client as per the response that we received in step 1 (Access-Token: BqXcWQi0-9faLyxP1LnUKw and Client: dYSqVgM9VT6fV9Y5MFWpJQ).

That's it! :)

I took the help of @user3006381's answer! All credits to him.