What is RestClient.Client used for?

[wonderplayer]

I've been looking at RestClient.Client property lately and thought that I could execute requests against SharePoint using that HttpClient. But apparently, RestClient.Client doesn't have authorization header in it by default.
So I was wondering what should this client be used for if not for simplifying REST requests against SharePoint?

[jansenbe]

The REST client is just a http client, internally it's used to make the SP REST calls, the that adds the authorization header is internal. They key ask here seems to be "how can I perform a REST/Graph query and get the json results back without doing additional configuration work"...Correct?

[wonderplayer]

Well, yeah 😊
I kinda figured that out - I'm manually adding authorization header with pnp token like this:
ctx.RestClient.Client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("bearer", await ctx.AuthenticationProvider.GetAccessTokenAsync(tenantURL).ConfigureAwait(false));
Is there a better way to do it?

[jansenbe]

No, that's a valid pattern for now, but I think we can make this pattern easier to use.

[jansenbe]

@wonderplayer : This is now possible via the new ExecuteRequestAsync/ExecuteRequest methods. See https://pnp.github.io/pnpcore/using-the-sdk/basics-customapirequests.html for some early docs.