MediaWiki API help
This is an auto-generated MediaWiki API documentation page.
Documentation and examples: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/API:Main_page
Main module
- Source: MediaWiki
- License: GPL-2.0-or-later
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.
- action
Which action to perform.
- 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.
- block
- Block a user.
- 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.
- compare
- Get the difference between two pages.
- createaccount
- Create a new user account.
- delete
- Delete a page.
- 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.
- emailuser
- Email a user.
- expandtemplates
- Expands all templates within wikitext.
- 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.
- help
- Display help for the specified modules.
- imagerotate
- Rotate one or more images.
- import
- Import a page from another wiki, or from an XML file.
- 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.
- mergehistory
- Merge page histories.
- move
- Move a page.
- opensearch
- Search the wiki using the OpenSearch protocol.
- options
- Change preferences of the current user.
- 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.
- revisiondelete
- Delete and undelete revisions.
- rollback
- Undo the last edit to the page.
- rsd
- Export an RSD (Really Simple Discovery) schema.
- setnotificationtimestamp
- Update the notification timestamp for watched pages.
- setpagelanguage
- Change the language of a page.
- spamblacklist
- Validate one or more URLs against the spam block list.
- 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.
- 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.
- categorytree
- Internal. Internal module for the CategoryTree extension.
- 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.
- discussiontoolscompare
- Internal. Get information about comment changes between two page revisions.
- discussiontoolsedit
- Internal. Post a message on a discussion page.
- discussiontoolsgetsubscriptions
- Internal. Get the subscription statuses of given topics.
- discussiontoolspageinfo
- Internal. Returns metadata required to initialize the discussion tools.
- discussiontoolspreview
- Internal. Preview a message on a discussion page.
- discussiontoolssubscribe
- Internal. Subscribe (or unsubscribe) to receive notifications about a topic.
- oathvalidate
- Internal. Validate a two-factor authentication (OATH) token.
- scribunto-console
- Internal. Internal module for servicing XHR requests from the Scribunto console.
- stashedit
- Internal. Prepare an edit in shared cache.
- 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).
- One of the following values: abusefiltercheckmatch, abusefilterchecksyntax, abusefilterevalexpression, abusefilterunblockautopromote, abuselogprivatedetails, block, changeauthenticationdata, changecontentmodel, checktoken, clearhasmsg, clientlogin, compare, createaccount, delete, echomarkread, echomarkseen, echomute, edit, emailuser, expandtemplates, feedcontributions, feedrecentchanges, feedwatchlist, filerevert, help, imagerotate, import, linkaccount, login, logout, managetags, mergehistory, move, opensearch, options, paraminfo, parse, patrol, protect, purge, query, removeauthenticationdata, resetpassword, revisiondelete, rollback, rsd, setnotificationtimestamp, setpagelanguage, spamblacklist, tag, templatedata, thank, titleblacklist, unblock, undelete, unlinkaccount, upload, userrights, validatepassword, watch, categorytree, cspreport, discussiontoolscompare, discussiontoolsedit, discussiontoolsgetsubscriptions, discussiontoolspageinfo, discussiontoolspreview, discussiontoolssubscribe, oathvalidate, scribunto-console, stashedit, visualeditor, visualeditoredit
- Default: help
- format
The format of the output.
- json
- Output data in JSON format.
- jsonfm
- Output data in JSON format (pretty-print in HTML).
- none
- Output nothing.
- php
- Output data in serialized PHP format.
- phpfm
- Output data in serialized PHP format (pretty-print in HTML).
- 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, php, phpfm, rawfm, xml, xmlfm
- Default: jsonfm
- maxlag
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: integer
- smaxage
Set the
s-maxage
HTTP cache control header to this many seconds. Errors are never cached.- Type: integer
- Default: 0
- maxage
Set the
max-age
HTTP cache control header to this many seconds. Errors are never cached.- Type: integer
- Default: 0
- assert
Verify that the user is logged in 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, user
- assertuser
Verify the current user is the named user.
- Type: user, by username
- requestid
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 URI (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 theOrigin
header, a 403 response will be returned. If this parameter matches theOrigin
header and the origin is allowed, theAccess-Control-Allow-Origin
andAccess-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, butAccess-Control-Allow-Credentials
will befalse
and all user-specific data will be restricted.- uselang
Language to use for message translations. action=query&meta=siteinfo with siprop=languages returns a list of language codes, or specify user to use the current user's language preference, or specify content to use this wiki's content language.
- Default: user
- variant
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, wikitext
- Default: bc
- errorlang
Language to use for warnings and errors. action=query&meta=siteinfo with siprop=languages returns a list of language codes, or specify content to use this wiki's content language, or specify uselang to use the same value as the uselang parameter.
- Default: uselang
- errorsuselocal
If given, error texts will use locally-customized messages from the MediaWiki namespace.
- Type: boolean (details)
- Help for the main module.
- api.php?action=help [open in sandbox]
- All help in one page.
- api.php?action=help&recursivesubmodules=1 [open in sandbox]
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. Additionally, the string now may be used to specify the current timestamp.
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.
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/.