Difference between client-id and id of client in Keycloak

Question

Well, the title speaks for itself. In many places from Keycloak docs I encountered this statement

id of client (not client-id)

For now this statement sounds so stupid to me as I do not understand the difference between client-id and id of the client. Can somebody explain me this, please?

Answer 1

When you're creating a new client, you specify its Client ID (or simply client's name), e.g. "my-super-client". This is supposed to be unique across the realm and usually used in OAuth calls, e.g. as a client_id in "Client Credentials" flow (in pair with client_secret).

However, when creating a new client, KeyCloak issues an internal unique ID like this 3f7dd007-568f-4f4a-bbac-2e6bfff93860. You may find it in a URL when opening a page of your "my-super-client" in the web interface. This one is supposed to be a unique ID of any resource that KeyCloak creates during its lifespan.

Keeping this in mind, I think it'd be clear from the context of documentation which one is "id of client" and which one is "client-id" as you stated in the question. If not, please give a link here.