Since the Gadgets extension introduced the package option and made it possible to require other modules, some communities have wished if they could rely on bots to automatically update JSON modules in the MediaWiki namespace. However, this has always been somewhat challenging due to security concerns as such bots would need sysop or interface-admin rights unless there is a project-specific user group with the editsitejson permission.

To resolve this dilemma, it may be good to create a user group like interface-editor on all wikis, with the following permissions:

• Edit the user interface (editinterface)
• Edit sitewide JSON (editsitejson)
• Enable two-factor authentication (oathauth-enable)

The idea is to create a subset group of interface-admin so that it will be easier to operate such bots even if the operator doesn't have exclusive rights.

In fact, many projects already have interface-editor as a custom user group (see core-Permissions.php). That said, I believe it would be reasonable to update configurations so that interface-editor will no longer be a "custom" user group.

See also the following discussions that mention the dilemma described above:

• metawiki:Meta:Requests for help from a sysop or bureaucrat#MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins-data.json
• b:en:Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2024/December#Some_changes_to_MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins
• ja:Wikipedia:井戸端/subj/貝塚送り・履歴保存 他の（管理者？）Bot運用化の提案

Acceptance criteria

• Standardize interface-editor user group across all WMF wikis
• Retain existing user right assignments for projects that already have the user group.