User:SRodlund (WMF)/API landing sandbox

Overview
This page provies an overview of the MediaWiki action API. This page is intended for technical contributors and software developers who wish to understand and use the MediaWiki action API.

Endpoint
All Wikimedia wikis have endpoints that follow this pattern:

MediaWiki Action API Help:

MediaWiki Action API on GitHub:

Introduction
The MediaWiki action API is a web service that provides access to wiki features, data, and meta-data over HTTP, via this URL:

Uses for the MediaWiki Action API

 * Monitor a MediaWiki installation
 * Create a bot to maintian a MediaWiki installation
 * Log into a wiki, access data, and post changes by making HTTP requests to the web service
 * A link to use cases

Getting started with MediaWiki action API
Before you start using the MediaWiki action API, you should review the following pages:


 * The faq>Special:MyLanguage/API:FAQ|FAQ.
 * The page about data-format>Special:MyLanguage/API:Data formats|input and output formats
 * The page about errors>Special:MyLanguage/API:Errors and warnings|errors and warnings
 * Any policies that apply to the wiki you want to access, such as Wikimedia Foundation wikis' tou>wmf:Terms of Use|terms of use, tmp>wmf:trademark policy|trademark policy. These terms apply to you when you access or edit using the API, just as they do when you use your web browser.

If you would like to learn more about APIs in general, please see:

Conventions
We use the following conventions throughout the MediaWiki API documentation:


 * Responses are in JSON format
 * Responses are listed under ‘Responses’ for each method.
 * Request parameters are mandatory unless explicitly marked as Optional.
 * The type of values accepted for a request parameter are shown the values column.
 * ...etc

Schema

 * Found at endpoint here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php (can we have this return in a basic XML or JSON format like: https://api.github.com)