MediaWiki API help - Wikipedia
MediaWiki API help
Contents
0 General information
0.1 Request methods
0.2 Data types
0.3 Limits
0.4 Templated parameters
1 Main module
2 Credits
This is an auto-generated MediaWiki Action API documentation page.
General information
Documentation & examples
Etiquette & usage guidelines
FAQ
Mailing list
API Announcements
Bugs & requests
Status: The MediaWiki API is a mature and stable interface that is actively supported and improved. While we try to avoid it, we may occasionally need to make breaking changes; subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list for notice of updates.
Erroneous requests: When erroneous requests are sent to the API, an HTTP header will be sent with the key "MediaWiki-API-Error" and then both the value of the header and the error code sent back will be set to the same value. For more information see API: Errors and warnings.
Testing: For ease of testing API requests, see Special:ApiSandbox.
Request methods
Action API requests may use GET and POST methods. Prefer using the GET method, which allows requests to be routed to faster replica servers and responses to be cached, unless the length of the URL with parameters would exceed its length limit (commonly 8000 bytes), or a module only accepts POST requests.
Parameters for POST requests may be sent in the query part of the request URL (like in GET requests) and in the POST request body, and mixing both ways in one request is allowed. Certain parameters such as passwords must be sent in the request body. If the same parameter is sent as part of the URL and also in the request body, it must have the same value in both places.
Data types
Input to MediaWiki should be NFC-normalized UTF-8. MediaWiki may attempt to convert other input, but this may cause some operations (such as edits with MD5 checks) to fail.
Parameters that take multiple values are normally submitted with the values separated using the pipe character, e.g. param=value1|value2 or param=value1%7Cvalue2. If a value must contain the pipe character, use U+001F (Unit Separator) as the separator and prefix the value with U+001F, e.g. param=%1Fvalue1%1Fvalue2.
Some parameter types in API requests need further explanation:
boolean
Boolean parameters work like HTML checkboxes: if the parameter is specified, regardless of value, it is considered true. For a false value, omit the parameter entirely.
expiry
Expiry values may be relative (e.g. 5 months or 2 weeks) or absolute (e.g. 2014-09-18T12:34:56Z). For no expiry, use infinite, indefinite, infinity or never.
timestamp
Timestamps may be specified in several formats, see the Timestamp library input formats documented on mediawiki.org for details. ISO 8601 date and time is recommended: 2001-01-15T14:56:00Z. The string now may be used to specify the current time.
Limits
Most API modules can accept up to 50 inputs in multivalue parameters, and can return up to 500 results per query (50 results for slow queries).
For users with the apihighlimits right (Bots, Administrators and Researchers), the limits are increased to 500 inputs and 5,000 results (500 results for slow queries).
Templated parameters
Templated parameters support cases where an API module needs a value for each value of some other parameter. For example, if there were an API module to request fruit, it might have a parameter fruits to specify which fruits are being requested and a templated parameter {fruit}-quantity to specify how many of each fruit to request. An API client that wants 1 apple, 5 bananas, and 20 strawberries could then make a request like fruits=apples|bananas|strawberries&apples-quantity=1&bananas-quantity=5&strawberries-quantity=20.
Main module
Source: MediaWiki
License: GPL-2.0-or-later
Specify the action to perform, the format of the response, and options that apply to all API modules.
Specific parameters:action
Which action to perform. This parameter should be sent as part of the request URL (not the POST body) for ease of use in debugging, analytics, and request routing or filtering.
abusefiltercheckmatch
Check to see if an AbuseFilter matches a set of variables, an edit, or a logged AbuseFilter event.
abusefilterchecksyntax
Check syntax of an AbuseFilter filter.
abusefilterevalexpression
Evaluates an AbuseFilter expression.
abusefilterunblockautopromote
Unblocks a user from receiving autopromotions due to an abusefilter consequence.
abuselogprivatedetails
View private details of an AbuseLog entry.
acquiretempusername
Acquire a temporary user username and stash it in the current session, if temp account creation is enabled and the current user is logged out. If a name has already been stashed, returns the same name.
antispoof
Check a username against AntiSpoof's normalisation checks.
block
Block a user.
centralauthtoken
Fetch a centralauthtoken for making an authenticated request to an attached wiki.
centralnoticecdncacheupdatebanner
Request the purge of banner content stored in the CDN (front-end) cache for anonymous users, for the requested banner and language
centralnoticechoicedata
Get data needed to choose a banner for a given project and language
centralnoticequerycampaign
Get all configuration settings for a campaign.
changeauthenticationdata
Change authentication data for the current user.
changecontentmodel
Change the content model of a page
checktoken
Check the validity of a token from action=query&meta=tokens.
clearhasmsg
Clears the hasmsg flag for the current user.
clientlogin
Log in to the wiki using the interactive flow.
communityconfigurationedit
Change the content of a configuration provider in Community configuration
compare
Get the difference between two pages.
createaccount
Create a new user account.
createlocalaccount
Forcibly create a local account. The central account must exist.
cxdelete
Delete a draft translation created using the Content Translation extension.
cxtoken
Get JWT tokens to authenticate with cxserver.
delete
Delete a page.
deleteglobalaccount
Delete a global user.
discussiontoolsedit
Post a message on a discussion page.
discussiontoolsfindcomment
Find a comment by its ID or name.
discussiontoolsgetsubscriptions
Get the subscription statuses of given topics.
discussiontoolssubscribe
Subscribe (or unsubscribe) to receive notifications about a topic.
discussiontoolsthank
Send a public thank-you notification for a comment.
echocreateevent
Manually trigger a notification to a user
echomarkread
Mark notifications as read for the current user.
echomarkseen
Mark notifications as seen for the current user.
echomute
Mute or unmute notifications from certain users or pages.
edit
Create and edit pages.
editmassmessagelist
Edit a mass message delivery list.
emailuser
Email a user.
expandtemplates
Expands all templates within wikitext.
featuredfeed
Returns a featured content feed.
feedcontributions
Returns a user's contributions feed.
feedrecentchanges
Returns a recent changes feed.
feedwatchlist
Returns a watchlist feed.
filerevert
Revert a file to an old version.
flagconfig
Get basic information about review flag configuration for this site.
globalblock
Globally block or unblock a user.
globalpreferenceoverrides
Change local overrides for global preferences for the current user.
globalpreferences
Change global preferences of the current user.
globaluserrights
Add/remove a user to/from global groups.
growthmanagementorlist
Manage information in the structured mentor list (usually stored in MediaWiki:GrowthMentors.json). This module can be used by both current and future mentors (to add themselves or change their details) and administrators (for all users).
growthmentordashboardupdatedata
Schedule an extraordinary update of the mentee overview module in the mentor dashboard. You can only schedule one update per two hours for performance reasons.
growthsetmenteestatus
Set mentee's status (allows mentees to enable/disable mentorship module, or to opt-out entirely, which deletes the mentee/mentor relationship)
growthsetmentor
Set user's mentor. Change will be publicly logged.
growthstarmentee
Mark or unmark a mentee as starred by current user (stored privately and not logged)
help
Display help for the specified modules.
homepagequestionstore
Obtain formatted questions posted via homepage modules
imagerotate
This module has been disabled.
import
Import a page from another wiki, or from an XML file.
jsonconfig
Allows direct access to JsonConfig subsystem.
languagesearch
Search for language names in any script.
linkaccount
Link an account from a third-party provider to the current user.
login
Log in and get authentication cookies.
logout
Log out and clear session data.
managetags
Perform management tasks relating to change tags.
massmessage
Send a message to a list of pages.
mergehistory
Merge page histories.
move
Move a page.
opensearch
Search the wiki using the OpenSearch protocol.
options
Change preferences of the current user.
pagetriageaction
Mark an article as reviewed or unreviewed.
pagetriagelist
Get a list of page IDs for building a PageTriage queue.
pagetriagestats
Get the stats for page triage.
pagetriagetagcopyvio
Tag a revision as a likely copyright violation.
pagetriagetagging
Add tags to an article.
paraminfo
Obtain information about API modules.
parse
Parses content and returns parser output.
patrol
Patrol a page or revision.
protect
Change the protection level of a page.
purge
Purge the cache for the given titles.
query
Fetch data from and about MediaWiki.
removeauthenticationdata
Remove authentication data for the current user.
resetpassword
Send a password reset email to a user.
review
Review a revision by approving or de-approving it.
revisiondelete
Delete and undelete revisions.
rollback
Undo the last edit to the page.
rsd
Export an RSD (Really Simple Discovery) schema.
setglobalaccountstatus
Hide or lock (or unhide or unlock) a global user account.
setnotificationtimestamp
Update the notification timestamp for watched pages.
setpagelanguage
Change the language of a page.
shortenurl
Shorten a long URL into a shorter one.
sitematrix
Get Wikimedia sites list.
spamblacklist
Validate one or more URLs against the spam block list.
stabilize
Configure review-protection settings for a page.
streamconfigs
Exposes event stream config. Returns only format=json with formatversion=2.
strikevote
Allows admins to strike or unstrike a vote.
sxdelete
Delete the draft section translation and its parallel corpora from database.
tag
Add or remove change tags from individual revisions or log entries.
templatedata
Fetch data stored by the TemplateData extension.
thank
Send a thank-you notification to an editor.
titleblacklist
Validate a page title, filename, or username against the TitleBlacklist.
torblock
Check if an IP address is blocked as a Tor exit node.
transcodereset
Users with the 'transcode-reset' right can reset and re-run a transcode job.
unblock
Unblock a user.
undelete
Undelete revisions of a deleted page.
unlinkaccount
Remove a linked third-party account from the current user.
upload
Upload a file, or get the status of pending uploads.
userrights
Change a user's group membership.
validatepassword
Validate a password against the wiki's password policies.
watch
Add or remove pages from the current user's watchlist.
webapp-manifest
Returns a webapp manifest.
webauthn
API Module to communicate between server and client during registration/authentication process.
wikilove
Give WikiLove to another user.
bouncehandler
Internal. Receive a bounce email and process it to handle the failing recipient.
categorytree
Internal. Internal module for the CategoryTree extension.
chartinfo
Internal. Retrieve current count of how many unique Chart page usages there are. Multiple uses of the same chart on the same page are considered a single use.
cirrus-check-sanity
Internal. Reports on the correctness of a range of page ids in the search index
cirrus-config-dump
Internal. Dump of CirrusSearch configuration.
cirrus-profiles-dump
Internal. Dump of CirrusSearch profiles for this wiki.
cirrus-schema-dump
Internal. Dump of CirrusSearch schema (settings and mappings) for this wiki.
codemirror-validate
Internal. Check for validation errors in the given content
collection
Internal. API module for performing various operations on a wiki user's collection.
cspreport
Internal. Used by browsers to report violations of the Content Security Policy. This module should never be used, except when used automatically by a CSP compliant web browser.
cxcheckunreviewed
Internal. Check if any fast, unreviewed translation has been published recently for the current user.
cxfavoritesuggestions
Internal. Add or remove a favorite suggestion to the current user's list.
cxpublish
Internal. Save a page created using the Content Translation extension.
cxpublishsection
Internal. Save a section created using the Content Translation extension's section translation feature.
cxsave
Internal. This module allows to save draft translations by section to save bandwidth and to collect parallel corpora.
cxsplit
Internal. Create and save a section translation to database, for every translated section of the given article translation
discussiontoolscompare
Internal. Get information about comment changes between two page revisions.
discussiontoolspageinfo
Internal. Returns metadata required to initialize the discussion tools.
discussiontoolspreview
Internal. Preview a message on a discussion page.
echopushsubscriptions
Internal. Manage push subscriptions for the current user.
editcheckreferenceurl
Internal. Check the status of a URL for use as a reference.
fancycaptchareload
Internal. Get a new FancyCaptcha.
growthinvalidateimagerecommendation
Internal. Invalidate an image recommendation.
growthinvalidatepersonalizedpraisesuggestion
Internal. Invalidates a suggestion of a praiseworthy mentee in the Personalized praise module on the Mentor dashboard
growthinvalidaterevisetonerecommendation
Internal. Drop a 'Revise Tone' recommendation for a given page.
helppanelquestionposter
Internal. Handle questions posted via the help panel for the current user.
jsondata
Internal. Retrieve localized JSON data.
jsontransform
Internal. Retrieve JSON data transformed by a Lua function.
parser-migration
Internal. Parse a page with two different parser configurations.
readinglists
Internal. Reading list write operations.
sanitize-mapdata
Internal. Performs data validation for Kartographer extension
scribunto-console
Internal. Internal module for servicing XHR requests from the Scribunto console.
securepollauth
Internal. Allows a remote wiki to authenticate users before granting access to vote in the election.
stashedit
Internal. Prepare an edit in shared cache.
sxsave
Internal. Save the draft section translation and store the parallel corpora
timedtext
Internal. Provides timed text content for usage by <track> elements
ulslocalization
Internal. Get the localization of ULS in the given language.
ulssetlang
Internal. Update user's preferred interface language.
visualeditor
Internal. Returns HTML5 for a page from the Parsoid service.
visualeditoredit
Internal. Save an HTML5 page to MediaWiki (converted to wikitext via the Parsoid service).
wikimediaeventsblockededit
Internal. Log information about blocked edit attempts
wikimediaeventshcaptchaeditattempt
Internal. Log edit diff when hCaptcha challenge is shown but edit is incompleteOne of the following values: abusefiltercheckmatch, abusefilterchecksyntax, abusefilterevalexpression, abusefilterunblockautopromote, abuselogprivatedetails, acquiretempusername, antispoof, block, centralauthtoken, centralnoticecdncacheupdatebanner, centralnoticechoicedata, centralnoticequerycampaign, changeauthenticationdata, changecontentmodel, checktoken, clearhasmsg, clientlogin, communityconfigurationedit, compare, createaccount, createlocalaccount, cxdelete, cxtoken, delete, deleteglobalaccount, discussiontoolsedit, discussiontoolsfindcomment, discussiontoolsgetsubscriptions, discussiontoolssubscribe, discussiontoolsthank, echocreateevent, echomarkread, echomarkseen, echomute, edit, editmassmessagelist, emailuser, expandtemplates, featuredfeed, feedcontributions, feedrecentchanges, feedwatchlist, filerevert, flagconfig, globalblock, globalpreferenceoverrides, globalpreferences, globaluserrights, growthmanagementorlist, growthmentordashboardupdatedata, growthsetmenteestatus, growthsetmentor, growthstarmentee, help, homepagequestionstore, imagerotate, import, jsonconfig, languagesearch, linkaccount, login, logout, managetags, massmessage, mergehistory, move, opensearch, options, pagetriageaction, pagetriagelist, pagetriagestats, pagetriagetagcopyvio, pagetriagetagging, paraminfo, parse, patrol, protect, purge, query, removeauthenticationdata, resetpassword, review, revisiondelete, rollback, rsd, setglobalaccountstatus, setnotificationtimestamp, setpagelanguage, shortenurl, sitematrix, spamblacklist, stabilize, streamconfigs, strikevote, sxdelete, tag, templatedata, thank, titleblacklist, torblock, transcodereset, unblock, undelete, unlinkaccount, upload, userrights, validatepassword, watch, webapp-manifest, webauthn, wikilove, bouncehandler, categorytree, chartinfo, cirrus-check-sanity, cirrus-config-dump, cirrus-profiles-dump, cirrus-schema-dump, codemirror-validate, collection, cspreport, cxcheckunreviewed, cxfavoritesuggestions, cxpublish, cxpublishsection, cxsave, cxsplit, discussiontoolscompare, discussiontoolspageinfo, discussiontoolspreview, echopushsubscriptions, editcheckreferenceurl, fancycaptchareload, growthinvalidateimagerecommendation, growthinvalidatepersonalizedpraisesuggestion, growthinvalidaterevisetonerecommendation, helppanelquestionposter, jsondata, jsontransform, parser-migration, readinglists, sanitize-mapdata, scribunto-console, securepollauth, stashedit, sxsave, timedtext, ulslocalization, ulssetlang, visualeditor, visualeditoredit, wikimediaeventsblockededit, wikimediaeventshcaptchaeditattemptDefault: helpformat
The format of the output.
json
Output data in JSON format.
jsonfm
Output data in JSON format (pretty-print in HTML).
none
Output nothing.
rawfm
Output data, including debugging elements, in JSON format (pretty-print in HTML).
xml
Output data in XML format.
xmlfm
Output data in XML format (pretty-print in HTML).One of the following values: json, jsonfm, none, rawfm, xml, xmlfmDefault: jsonfmmaxlag
Maximum lag can be used when MediaWiki is installed on a database replicated cluster. To save actions causing any more site replication lag, this parameter can make the client wait until the replication lag is less than the specified value. In case of excessive lag, error code maxlag is returned with a message like Waiting for $host: $lag seconds lagged.
See Manual: Maxlag parameter for more information.
Type: integersmaxage
Set the s-maxage HTTP cache control header to this many seconds. Errors are never cached.
Type: integerThe value must be no less than 0.Default: 0maxage
Set the max-age HTTP cache control header to this many seconds. Errors are never cached.
Type: integerThe value must be no less than 0.Default: 0assert
Verify that the user is logged in (including possibly as a temporary user) if set to user, not logged in if set to anon, or has the bot user right if bot.
One of the following values: anon, bot, userassertuser
Verify the current user is the named user.
Type: user, by any of username and Temporary userrequestid
Any value given here will be included in the response. May be used to distinguish requests.
servedby
Include the hostname that served the request in the results.
Type: boolean (details)curtimestamp
Include the current timestamp in the result.
Type: boolean (details)responselanginfo
Include the languages used for uselang and errorlang in the result.
Type: boolean (details)origin
When accessing the API using a cross-domain AJAX request (CORS), set this to the originating domain. This must be included in any pre-flight request, and therefore must be part of the request URL (not the POST body).
For authenticated requests, this must match one of the origins in the Origin header exactly, so it has to be set to something like https://en.wikipedia.org or https://meta.wikimedia.org. If this parameter does not match the Origin header, a 403 response will be returned. If this parameter matches the Origin header and the origin is allowed, the Access-Control-Allow-Origin and Access-Control-Allow-Credentials headers will be set.
For non-authenticated requests, specify the value *. This will cause the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header to be set, but Access-Control-Allow-Credentials will be false and all user-specific data will be restricted.
crossorigin
When accessing the API using a cross-domain AJAX request (CORS) and using a session provider that is safe against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks (such as OAuth), use this instead of origin=* to make the request authenticated (i.e., not logged out). This must be included in any pre-flight request, and therefore must be part of the request URL (not the POST body).
Note that most session providers, including standard cookie-based sessions, do not support authenticated CORS and cannot be used with this parameter.
Type: boolean (details)uselang
Language to use for message translations. action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=languages returns a list of language codes. You can specify user to use the current user's language preference or content to use this wiki's content language.
Default: uservariant
Variant of the language. Only works if the base language supports variant conversion.
errorformat
Format to use for warning and error text output
plaintext
Wikitext with HTML tags removed and entities replaced.
wikitext
Unparsed wikitext.
html
HTML
raw
Message key and parameters.
none
No text output, only the error codes.
bc
Format used prior to MediaWiki 1.29. errorlang and errorsuselocal are ignored.One of the following values: bc, html, none, plaintext, raw, wikitextDefault: bcerrorlang
Language to use for warnings and errors. action=query&meta=siteinfo&siprop=languages returns a list of language codes. Specify content to use this wiki's content language or uselang to use the same value as the uselang parameter.
Default: uselangerrorsuselocal
If given, error texts will use locally-customized messages from the MediaWiki namespace.
Type: boolean (details)centralauthtoken
When accessing the API using a cross-domain AJAX request (CORS), use this to authenticate as the current SUL user. Use action=centralauthtoken on this wiki to retrieve the token, before making the CORS request. Each token may only be used once, and expires after 60 seconds. This should be included in any pre-flight request, and therefore should be included in the request URI (not the POST body).
On this wiki the expected value is a JSON Web Token, which may be validated by proxy servers in front of MediaWiki. If the token has expired or is otherwise invalid, you may receive a HTTP error from a proxy in a different format than a normal API error.
Examples:Help for the main module.api.php?action=help [open in sandbox]All help in one page.api.php?action=help&recursivesubmodules=1&toc [open in sandbox]
Credits
API developers:
Yuri Astrakhan (creator, lead developer Sep 2006–Sep 2007)
Roan Kattouw (lead developer Sep 2007–2009)
Victor Vasiliev
Bryan Tong Minh
Sam Reed
Brad Jorsch (lead developer 2013–2020)
Please send your comments, suggestions and questions to mediawiki-api@lists.wikimedia.org
or file a bug report at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiHelp"