How does authentication work between my application and RavenHQ?

Your RavenDB client needs to be configured to use an API key. Once configured, the API key is automatically included in the header of each request that your RavenDB client makes to the RavenHQ database. The RavenHQ database then uses an OAuth implementation to examine whether the provided API key has the ability to access the requested database, and if so, an access token is issued.