In order to shut down the API Portal, we need to create a plan and timeline for shutting down the wiki and related components.

Components

• Wiki instance at api.wikimedia.org, served through the API Gateway Envoy instance (to be deprecated; see T413438)
  • Production: https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • Beta: https://api.wikimedia.beta.wmcloud.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • Identifier: apiportalwiki
• Skin:WikimediaApiPortal
• Extension:WikimediaApiPortalOAuth

Goal

Our goal is to no longer run the API Portal and related components in WMF beta and production. Visiting any https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/ URL should redirect to a TBD wiki page.

Strategy discussion

Based on wikitech:Delete a wiki, it seems that the usual process is to close a wiki instead of delete it. However, there is precedence for wikis being deleted in the past, such as Sep11wiki where the content was partially merged with Wikipedia and retained in the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Dumps. I think the API Portal is a similar type of content where the wiki is being superseded by other content locations.

Options for retaining content long term:

• Internet archive:
  • Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20251113210156/https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • Dumps: https://archive.org/details/wikimediadownloads?tab=collection&query=api+portal
• Wikimedia dumps: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/apiportalwiki/20260101/

Timeline

Work in progress

• January 22, 2026: Initial announcement
• January-April 2026: @apaskulin completes content migration
• June 2026:
  • ServiceOps redirects all API Portal URLs (http://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/) to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_APIs T418492
  • ServiceOps deletes the API Portal wiki T418492
  • MediaWiki Interfaces undeploys Skin:WikimediaApiPortal
  • MediaWiki Interfaces undeploys Extension:WikimediaApiPortalOAuth

To do

Q3:

• Review the timeline for feasibility, and whether there are other options we should consider. (See the strategy discussion section)
• Check with Data Platform Engineering on whether it would be feasible to offer a dump of the API Portal wiki long term, and what actions would be needed to do that.
  • From the docs on Meta: "Deleted wikis no longer have current dumps generated, but the last old dump is usually still around." However, the last dump of the API Portal wouldn't be very useful since the content will have been migrated elsewhere at that point. The last useful dump would be the last dump from 2025. There are several dumps in the Internet Archive, so we can direct users to those if it's not feasible to keep a specific historical dump.

Q4:

• Complete the steps in the timeline to sunset the wiki