MediaWiki API help

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.

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).

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.

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

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

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.

Verify the current user is the named user.

Any value given here will be included in the response. May be used to distinguish requests.

Include the hostname that served the request in the results.

Include the current timestamp in the result.

Include the languages used for uselang and errorlang in the result.

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.

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 URI (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.

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.

Variant of the language. Only works if the base language supports variant conversion.

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.

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.

If given, error texts will use locally-customized messages from the MediaWiki namespace.

ID of the block to modify (obtained through list=blocks). Cannot be used together with user, reblock, or newblock.

User to block. Cannot be used together with id.

Specify user=#ID instead.

Expiry time. May be relative (e.g. 5 months or 2 weeks) or absolute (e.g. 2014-09-18T12:34:56Z). If set to infinite, indefinite, or never, the block will never expire.

Reason for block.

Block anonymous users only (i.e. disable anonymous edits for this IP address, including temporary account edits).

Prevent account creation.

Automatically block the last used IP address, and any subsequent IP addresses they try to login from.

Prevent user from sending email through the wiki. (Requires the blockemail right).

Hide the username from the block log. (Requires the hideuser right).

Allow the user to edit their own talk page (depends on $wgBlockAllowsUTEdit).

If the user is already blocked by a single block, overwrite the existing block. If the user is blocked more than once, this will fail—use the id parameter instead to specify which block to overwrite. Cannot be used together with id or newblock.

Add another block even if the user is already blocked. Cannot be used together with id or reblock.

Watch the user's or IP address's user and talk pages.

Change tags to apply to the entry in the block log.

Block user from specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site.

List of titles to block the user from editing. Only applies when partial is set to true.

List of namespace IDs to block the user from editing. Only applies when partial is set to true.

List of actions to block the user from performing. Only applies when partial is set to true.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Use this authentication request, by the id returned from action=query&meta=authmanagerinfo with amirequestsfor=change.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Title of the page to change the contentmodel of. Cannot be used together with pageid.

Page ID of the page to change the contentmodel of. Cannot be used together with title.

Edit summary and log entry reason

Change tags to apply to the log entry and edit.

Content model of the new content.

Mark the content model change with a bot flag.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Type of token being tested.

Token to test.

Maximum allowed age of the token, in seconds.

Only use these authentication requests, by the id returned from action=query&meta=authmanagerinfo with amirequestsfor=login or from a previous response from this module.

Format to use for returning messages.

Merge field information for all authentication requests into one array.

Preserve state from a previous failed login attempt, if possible.

Return URL for third-party authentication flows, must be absolute. Either this or logincontinue is required.

Upon receiving a REDIRECT response, you will typically open a browser or web view to the specified redirecttarget URL for a third-party authentication flow. When that completes, the third party will send the browser or web view to this URL. You should extract any query or POST parameters from the URL and pass them as a logincontinue request to this API module.

This request is a continuation after an earlier UI or REDIRECT response. Either this or loginreturnurl is required.

A "login" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

First title to compare.

First page ID to compare.

First revision to compare.

Override content of the revision specified by fromtitle, fromid or fromrev.

This parameter specifies the slots that are to be modified. Use fromtext-{slot}, fromcontentmodel-{slot}, and fromcontentformat-{slot} to specify content for each slot.

Text of the specified slot. If omitted, the slot is removed from the revision.

When fromtext-{slot} is the content of a single section, this is the section identifier. It will be merged into the revision specified by fromtitle, fromid or fromrev as if for a section edit.

Content serialization format of fromtext-{slot}.

Content model of fromtext-{slot}. If not supplied, it will be guessed based on the other parameters.

Do a pre-save transform on fromtext-{slot}.

Specify fromslots=main and use fromtext-main instead.

Specify fromslots=main and use fromcontentformat-main instead.

Specify fromslots=main and use fromcontentmodel-main instead.

Only use the specified section of the specified 'from' content.

Second title to compare.

Second page ID to compare.

Second revision to compare.

Use a revision relative to the revision determined from fromtitle, fromid or fromrev. All of the other 'to' options will be ignored.

Override content of the revision specified by totitle, toid or torev.

This parameter specifies the slots that are to be modified. Use totext-{slot}, tocontentmodel-{slot}, and tocontentformat-{slot} to specify content for each slot.

Text of the specified slot. If omitted, the slot is removed from the revision.

When totext-{slot} is the content of a single section, this is the section identifier. It will be merged into the revision specified by totitle, toid or torev as if for a section edit.

Content serialization format of totext-{slot}.

Content model of totext-{slot}. If not supplied, it will be guessed based on the other parameters.

Do a pre-save transform on totext.

Specify toslots=main and use totext-main instead.

Specify toslots=main and use tocontentformat-main instead.

Specify toslots=main and use tocontentmodel-main instead.

Only use the specified section of the specified 'to' content.

Which pieces of information to get.

diff

The diff HTML.

diffsize

The size of the diff HTML, in bytes.

rel

The revision IDs of the revision previous to 'from' and after 'to', if any.

ids

The page and revision IDs of the 'from' and 'to' revisions.

title

The page titles of the 'from' and 'to' revisions.

user

The username and ID of the 'from' and 'to' revisions. If the user has been revision deleted, a fromuserhidden or touserhidden property will be returned.

comment

The comment on the 'from' and 'to' revisions. If the comment has been revision deleted, a fromcommenthidden or tocommenthidden property will be returned.

parsedcomment

The parsed comment on the 'from' and 'to' revisions. If the comment has been revision deleted, a fromcommenthidden or tocommenthidden property will be returned.

size

The size of the 'from' and 'to' revisions.

timestamp

The timestamp of the 'from' and 'to' revisions.

Return individual diffs for these slots, rather than one combined diff for all slots.

Return the comparison formatted as inline HTML.

Only use these authentication requests, by the id returned from action=query&meta=authmanagerinfo with amirequestsfor=create or from a previous response from this module.

Format to use for returning messages.

Merge field information for all authentication requests into one array.

Preserve state from a previous failed login attempt, if possible.

If action=query&meta=authmanagerinfo returned true for hasprimarypreservedstate, requests marked as primary-required should be omitted. If it returned a non-empty value for preservedusername, that username must be used for the username parameter.

Return URL for third-party authentication flows, must be absolute. Either this or createcontinue is required.

Upon receiving a REDIRECT response, you will typically open a browser or web view to the specified redirecttarget URL for a third-party authentication flow. When that completes, the third party will send the browser or web view to this URL. You should extract any query or POST parameters from the URL and pass them as a createcontinue request to this API module.

This request is a continuation after an earlier UI or REDIRECT response. Either this or createreturnurl is required.

A "createaccount" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Mark as being a report from a monitoring policy, not an enforced policy

What generated the CSP header that triggered this report

Title of the page to delete. Cannot be used together with pageid.

Page ID of the page to delete. Cannot be used together with title.

Reason for the deletion. If not set, an automatically generated reason will be used.

Change tags to apply to the entry in the deletion log.

Delete the talk page, if it exists.

Add the page to the current user's watchlist.

Unconditionally add or remove the page from the current user's watchlist, use preferences (ignored for bot users) or do not change watch.

Remove the page from the current user's watchlist.

The name of the old image to delete as provided by action=query&prop=imageinfo&iiprop=archivename.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Title of the page to edit. Cannot be used together with pageid.

Page ID of the page to edit. Cannot be used together with title.

Section identifier. 0 for the top section, new for a new section. Often a positive integer, but can also be non-numeric.

The title for a new section when using section=new.

Page content.

Edit summary.

When this parameter is not provided or empty, an edit summary may be generated automatically.

When using section=new and sectiontitle is not provided, the value of this parameter is used for the section title instead, and an edit summary is generated automatically.

Change tags to apply to the revision.

Mark this edit as a minor edit.

Do not mark this edit as a minor edit even if the "Mark all edits minor by default" user preference is set.

Mark this edit as a bot edit.

ID of the base revision, used to detect edit conflicts. May be obtained through action=query&prop=revisions. Self-conflicts cause the edit to fail unless basetimestamp is set.

Timestamp of the base revision, used to detect edit conflicts. May be obtained through action=query&prop=revisions&rvprop=timestamp. Self-conflicts are ignored.

Timestamp when the editing process began, used to detect edit conflicts. An appropriate value may be obtained using curtimestamp when beginning the edit process (e.g. when loading the page content to edit).

Override any errors about the page having been deleted in the meantime.

Don't edit the page if it exists already.

Throw an error if the page doesn't exist.

Add the page to the current user's watchlist.

Remove the page from the current user's watchlist.

Unconditionally add or remove the page from the current user's watchlist, use preferences (ignored for bot users) or do not change watch.

The MD5 hash of the text parameter, or the prependtext and appendtext parameters concatenated. If set, the edit won't be done unless the hash is correct.

Add this text to the beginning of the page or section. Overrides text.

Add this text to the end of the page or section. Overrides text.

Use section=new to append a new section, rather than this parameter.

Undo this revision. Overrides text, prependtext and appendtext.

Undo all revisions from undo to this one. If not set, just undo one revision.

Automatically resolve redirects.

Content serialization format used for the input text.

Content model of the new content.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

The token should always be sent as the last parameter, or at least after the text parameter.

Page title. If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to the given page, instead of the page that was edited.

URL query parameters (with leading ?). If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to a page with the given query parameters.

URL fragment (with leading #). If saving the edit created a temporary account, the API may respond with an URL that the client should visit to complete logging in. If this parameter is provided, the URL will redirect to a page with the given fragment.

User to send the email to.

Subject header.

Email body.

Send a copy of this mail to me.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Title of the page.

Wikitext to convert.

Revision ID, for {{REVISIONID}} and similar variables.

Which pieces of information to get.

Note that if no values are selected, the result will contain the wikitext, but the output will be in a deprecated format.

wikitext

The expanded wikitext.

categories

Any categories present in the input that are not represented in the wikitext output.

properties

Page properties defined by expanded magic words in the wikitext.

volatile

Whether the output is volatile and should not be reused elsewhere within the page.

ttl

The maximum time after which caches of the result should be invalidated.

modules

Any ResourceLoader modules that parser functions have requested be added to the output. Either jsconfigvars or encodedjsconfigvars must be requested jointly with modules.

jsconfigvars

Gives the JavaScript configuration variables specific to the page.

encodedjsconfigvars

Gives the JavaScript configuration variables specific to the page as a JSON string.

parsetree

The XML parse tree of the input.

Whether to include HTML comments in the output.

Whether to include internal merge strategy information in jsconfigvars.

Generate XML parse tree (replaced by prop=parsetree).

The format of the feed.

What users to get the contributions for.

Which namespace to filter the contributions by.

From year (and earlier).

From month (and earlier).

Filter contributions that have these tags.

Show only deleted contributions.

Only show edits that are the latest revisions.

Only show edits that are page creations.

Hide minor edits.

Show the size difference between revisions.

The format of the feed.

Namespace to limit the results to.

All namespaces but the selected one.

Include associated (talk or main) namespace.

Days to limit the results to.

Maximum number of results to return.

Show changes since then.

Hide minor changes.

Hide changes made by bots.

Hide changes made by anonymous users.

Hide changes made by registered users.

Hide patrolled changes.

Hide changes made by the current user.

Hide category membership changes.

Filter by tag.

All edits except ones tagged with the selected ones.

Show only changes on pages linked from this page.

Show changes on pages linked to the selected page instead.

The format of the feed.

List pages modified within this many hours from now.

Link directly to changed sections if possible.

Include multiple revisions of the same page within given timeframe.

Used along with token to access a different user's watchlist.

A security token (available in the user's preferences) to allow access to another user's watchlist.

Show only items that meet these criteria. For example, to see only minor edits done by logged-in users, set show=minor|!anon.

Which types of changes to show:

edit

Regular page edits.

new

Page creations.

log

Log entries.

external

External changes.

categorize

Category membership changes.

Don't list changes by this user.

Target filename, without the File: prefix.

Upload comment.

Archive name of the revision to revert to.

A "csrf" token retrieved from action=query&meta=tokens

Modules to display help for (values of the action and format parameters, or main). Can specify submodules with a +.

Include help for submodules of the named module.

Include help for submodules recursively.

Wrap the output in a standard API response structure.

Include a table of contents in the HTML output.

Degrees to rotate image clockwise.

When more results are available, use this to continue. More detailed information on how to continue queries can be found on mediawiki.org.

Tags to apply to the entry in the upload log.

A list of titles to work on.

A list of page IDs to work on.

A list of revision IDs to work on. Note that almost all query modules will convert revision IDs to the corresponding page ID and work on the latest revision instead. Only prop=revisions uses exact revisions for its response.

Get the list of pages to work on by executing the specified query module.

Note: Generator parameter names must be prefixed with a "g", see examples.

allcategories

Enumerate all categories.

alldeletedrevisions

List all deleted revisions by a user or in a namespace.