MediaWiki API help

Which action to perform.

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.

spamblacklist

Validate one or more URLs against the SpamBlacklist.

tag

Add or remove change tags from individual revisions or log entries.

templatedata

Fetch data stored by the TemplateData extension.

titleblacklist

Validate a page title, filename, or username against the TitleBlacklist.

unblock

Unblock a user.

undelete

Restore 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.

tokens

Deprecated. Get tokens for data-modifying actions.

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.

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).

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 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 whitelisted, 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.

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.

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 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.

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