A method comprising: maintaining a software development platform providing a user interface to receive program instructions from a developer and providing platform code to be supplied by the platform, said software development platform hosting applications comprising program instructions written by a developer, maintaining an exception handler provided by the software development platform, wherein the exception handler is executable to process a particular type of exception that causes an authentication of users of applications running on the software development platform; receiving, at the exception handler, an indication of the particular type of exception thrown by a particular application, said particular exception having been thrown by developer - supplied program instructions; in response to receiving the indication of the particular type of exception: issuing, by the exception handler to a web browser interacting with the particular application, a request that the web browser redirect to an authentication server configured to perform an authentication of a user of the particular application; receiving, from the authentication server, a result of the performed authentication; and returning the result to the particular application, wherein the method further comprises: analyzing a stack trace received with the indication of the particular type of exception, wherein the stack trace identifies a name of an application function that threw the particular type of exception; and based on the analyzing, determining whether to issue the request that the web browser redirect to an authentication server. maintaining a software development platform providing a user interface to receive program instructions from a developer and providing platform code to be supplied by the platform, said software development platform hosting applications comprising program instructions written by a developer, maintaining an exception handler provided by the software development platform, wherein the exception handler is executable to process a particular type of exception that causes an authentication of users of applications running on the software development platform; receiving, at the exception handler, an indication of the particular type of exception thrown by a particular application, said particular exception having been thrown by developer - supplied program instructions; in response to receiving the indication of the particular type of exception: issuing, by the exception handler to a web browser interacting with the particular application, a request that the web browser redirect to an authentication server configured to perform an authentication of a user of the particular application; receiving, from the authentication server, a result of the performed authentication; and returning the result to the particular application, issuing, by the exception handler to a web browser interacting with the particular application, a request that the web browser redirect to an authentication server configured to perform an authentication of a user of the particular application; receiving, from the authentication server, a result of the performed authentication; and returning the result to the particular application, analyzing a stack trace received with the indication of the particular type of exception, wherein the stack trace identifies a name of an application function that threw the particular type of exception; and based on the analyzing, determining whether to issue the request that the web browser redirect to an authentication server. <EOS>