User_Connected_Account tokens are encrypted?

1. User::ConnectedAccount stores a copy of the access token and the secret encrypted in the database. It encrypts it because they're basically passwords for other services.
2. To retrieve an access token from a record, you should be able to use "@account.access_token"
3. We provide a special "@account.token" method that will seamlessly refresh the token for you if it expires. This way you don't have to worry about expired tokens.

  # Safely handles empty strings before attempting encryption
  def safe_access_token_secret=(value)
    return if value.blank?
    __send__("attr_encrypted_access_token_secret=", value)
  end

  # Replace the dynamically defined attr_encrypted method with our own
  alias_method :attr_encrypted_access_token_secret=, :access_token_secret=
  alias_method :access_token_secret=, :safe_access_token_secret=

Chris Oliver     

There is a token method in the connected_accounts model that seems like updating the token every time the user logs in, right? 🤔  

But it would not refresh the token on the fly if I just call the @account.token method in a controller? That's actually what I meant to ask. There is a chance that the token may have expired just before an API call in a controller if a user did not log in with that account for a while. 

For some reason, I had that expectation from the token method after reading the jumpstart documentation 😛

perhaps another default helper method may be useful to everyone, something like  

def token_expiring?
 if expires_at? && expires_at <= Time.zone.now + 7.days
end