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

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.

Specific parameters:
action

Which action to perform.

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.
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.
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.
tag
Add or remove change tags from individual revisions or log entries.
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.
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.
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: acquiretempusername, block, changeauthenticationdata, changecontentmodel, checktoken, clearhasmsg, clientlogin, compare, createaccount, delete, 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, tag, unblock, undelete, unlinkaccount, upload, userrights, validatepassword, watch, cspreport, 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
The value must be no less than 0.
Default: 0
maxage

Set the max-age HTTP cache control header to this many seconds. Errors are never cached.

Type: integer
The value must be no less than 0.
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 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.

uselang

Language to use for message translations. action=query&meta=siteinfo&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&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)
Permissions:
writeapi
Use of the write API
Granted to: all, user and bot
apihighlimits
Use higher limits in API queries (slow queries: 500; fast queries: 5000). The limits for slow queries also apply to multivalue parameters.
Granted to: bot and sysop

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/.