Maniphest T419989

document how to use Wikimedia Enterprise API Paid Features for Free with WMCS
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	CalvinBall
	Mar 13 2026, 1:46 PM

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Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE

Description

The 'Access' section of the Metawiki page on Wikimedia Enterprise describes that Wikimedia community members can access the paid features of the Enterprise APIs for free through WMCS: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise#Access

But the path to access is not clearly described anywhere.

Goals:

Figure out the prerequisites for using WME APIs through WMCS
clearly describe how a user with WMCS access can start using the WME APIs
find where to put that documentation, and put it there
share this information more broadly with Wikimedia community devs.

Event Timeline

CalvinBall created this task.Mar 13 2026, 1:46 PM

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald TranscriptMar 13 2026, 1:46 PM

CalvinBall moved this task from Proposed Projects to Tinkering in Progress on the Hackathon-Northwestern-Europe-2026 board.Mar 13 2026, 1:46 PM

Thoughts:

WME should be mentioned on the following pages: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Cloud_Services_introduction ,

WME docs should be maintained here https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Portal:Data_Services

User journey:

from WME metawiki, to Help:Cloud Services intro, realize there's no way to learn on this page how to access WME APIs. Move to 'Before you start' section , to Help: Create a WM Dev account. Under 'prerequisites', I assume I fall under the 'general use/VPS use case', since I don't fall under the toolforge use case. Go to 'the general process' section. Wonder if I should create a username using my full name, or my Wiki username. Should it be the same as my WMF username? Probably best not. Get forwarded to WM dev account signup form. sign up and verify email address. Go to [[ https://idm.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/login/?next=/ | IDM login ]]to try and sign in. After successful login, go to connect global account as prompted. Connect phab account as prompted. I now have a bunch of info here, but with no idea of how to connect to WME APIs. Go to [[ https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Portal:Data_Services | Data Services ]]page. WME *is* mentioned here! But it only links back to the Metawiki page, which is absolutely not useful. The only useful info is "Users of Toolforge, Cloud VPS, or PAWS have access to the On-demand and Snapshot APIs." Looking at the boxes on toolforge and PAWS, this doesn't seem to be what I need. Maybe if I open a notebook on PAWS I can access WME APIs? Should test this later. I feel like Cloud VPS is what I need. Go to Cloud VPS Portal.

Stuck here. I just need to make some calls from infrastructure like PAWS, Toolforge, or Cloud VPS. From internal slack I know that *WMCS bypasses auth*. So I don't need to auth, meaning I can just make calls without an Auth access_token?

User Journey, cont'd

1: PAWS

Paws homepage
click on first link
log in, get authd, click on 'console bash'
use an example query for on-demand API, but without a --header param. Execute bash.

curl --location --request GET 'https://api.enterprise.wikimedia.com/v2/articles/Josephine_Baker' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{"filters":[{"field":"is_part_of.identifier","value":"enwiki"},{"field":"namespace.identifier","value":0}]}'

it...just works!

-> do we make tutorials in these ipynbs for WME APIs?

second test to see if we really have paid account access: try Realtime stream

curl --location 'https://realtime.enterprise.wikimedia.com/v2/articles' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{"filters":[{"field":"is_part_of.identifier","value":"enwiki"}]}'

also works
tried in terminal on PAWS: also works.

changes made

updated broken anchor in how to create a WM developer account Page- updated text in Data Services page to specify that WMCS gives access to *all API endpoints*. Edit 1, Edit 2.

2: Toolforge

go to toolforge getting started (also found cloud VPS getting started)

get forwarded to toolforge quickstart. Find 'if you already have the right accounts' section. Get forwarded to toolforgeadmin. Log in. Connect WM account to dev account on toolforge.
have to set up an SSH pubkey. Go to howto on ssh key gen. Read up on SSH keys, and realize I can probably use the same pubkey I already have and use for other services. Added SSH key.
lost the thread for a second, found it again in Toolforge quickstart. submitted toolforge membership request. Asked @Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE if they could pretty please approve request, which they did.
managed to ssh in using

ssh -i ~/.ssh calvinball@login.toolforge.org

made the same two example calls above, which again work perfectly in toolforge ssh shell.

3: Cloud VPS

go to Cloud VPS portal
go to cloud VPS user docs
I understand I need to create or join a cloud VPS project to test these calls in Cloud VPS
Look at existing cloud VPS projects.
I'm going to assume that if this works on Toolforge or PAWS as expected, this will also be the case for VPS. Joining or creating a Cloud VPS project will take too much time at this hackathon.