Techniques are disclosed for initiating transient sessions on a communal device. An example method includes a system receiving, from a media streaming device, a request for a transient session token for initiating a transient session of a streaming service. The system can transmit, to the media streaming device, an authentication request for authenticating a user account that is associated with the streaming service. The authentication request can be transmitted based at least in part on the receipt of the request for the transient session token. The system can receive, from the media streaming device, an authentication response based at least in part on transmitting the authentication request. The system can authenticate that the user account is associated with the streaming service based at least in part on receiving the authentication response. The system can transmit the transient session token to the media streaming device. The transient session token comprises an expiration parameter for ending the transient session of the streaming service.