Property talk:P6269

Documentation

• Start a query
• Current uses
• Statistics by class
• Network protocols
• List of qualifiers
• Count

API endpoint URL
base URL of a web service

Represents	server-side web API (Q557770)
Data type	URL
Domain	data set (Q1172284), web service (Q193424) (note: this should be moved to the property statements)
Allowed values	https?://.{5,1000}
Example	According to this template: Wikidata (Q2013) → https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php (no standard protocol) Library of Congress (Q131454) → "unknown" qualifier described at URL (P973) https://libraryofcongress.github.io/data-exploration/ Library of Congress (Q131454) → http://lx2.loc.gov:210/LCDB qualifier protocol (P2700) Search/Retrieve via URL (Q337367) GitHub (Q364) → https://api.github.com/graphql qualifier protocol (P2700) qualifier described at URL (P973) https://developer.github.com/v4/ GitHub (Q364) API → https://api.github.com (no standard protocol) qualifier file format (P2701) JSON (Q2063) According to statements in the property: Wikidata (Q2013) → https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php GitHub (Q364) → https://api.github.com/graphql Kitsu (Q115633627) → https://kitsu.io/api/edge Wikitech (Q104819161) → https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/w/rest.php When possible, data should only be stored as statements
Source	websites of each item and third-party directories such as https://www.programmableweb.com/apis/directory (note: this information should be moved to a property statement; use property source website for the property (P1896))
Tracking: usage	Category:Pages using Wikidata property P6269 (Q126375264)
See also	SPARQL endpoint URL (P5305), web feed URL (P1019), URL (P2699), protocol (P2700)
Lists	Items with the most statements of this property Count of items by number of statements (chart) Items with the most statements Items with the fewest statements Count of items by number of sitelinks (chart) Items with the most sitelinks Items with the most sitelinks, but no link to one Wikipedia (sample: Welsh Wikipedia, cywiki) Items with the fewest sitelinks Most linked wikis Items with the most identifier properties Items with no other statements Most recently created items Items with novalue claims Items with unknown value claims Items with deprecated claims Usage history (total) Usage history (main statement) Chart by item creation date Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269 Map Random list
Proposal discussion	Proposal discussion
Current uses	Total 108,026 Main statement 108,012 >99.9% of uses Qualifier 5 <0.1% of uses Reference 9 <0.1% of uses
Search for values

[create Create a translatable help page (preferably in English) for this property to be included here]

Scope is as main value (Q54828448): the property must be used by specified way only (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#Scope, SPARQL

Distinct values: this property likely contains a value that is different from all other items. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#Unique value, SPARQL (every item), SPARQL (by value)

Format “https?://.{5,1000}”: value must be formatted using this pattern (PCRE syntax). (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#Format, SPARQL

Required qualifier “protocol (P2700)”: this property should be used with the listed qualifier. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#mandatory qualifier, SPARQL

Allowed entity types are Wikibase item (Q29934200), Wikibase property (Q29934218): the property may only be used on a certain entity type (Help)

List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#Entity types, hourly updated report

Qualifiers “protocol (P2700), user manual URL (P2078), language of work or name (P407), applies to part (P518), MCW-PL article ID (P13597), applies if regular expression matches (P8460), together with (P1706), domain name (P13337)”: this property should be used only with the listed qualifiers. (Help)

Exceptions are possible as rare values may exist. Exceptions can be specified using exception to constraint (P2303).
List of violations of this constraint: Database reports/Constraint violations/P6269#allowed qualifiers, SPARQL

Wikidata:List of APIs with user manual

See that list for items with this property set as well as a user manual URL specified. Why do so few items have the user manual for the API set? Prototyperspective (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

More guidance on "protocol" qualifier

Since Aug 2022, the protocol (P2700) qualifier is mandatory for this property, but the values used in it are all over the place. I think we might need more examples, information in Wikidata usage instructions (P2559), or possibly even dedicated qualifiers for the data format, authentication method, etc. Pinging @JakobVoss who proposed using the qualifier in the property proposal, and @IagoQnsi who made it required for this property. — Waldyrious (talk) 12:54, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

I think five years ago I must have been thinking that an API endpoint URL is pretty useless without knowing the protocol. If the protocol is unknown, a data consumer can't really do anything with the endpoint URL – sure, it could make an HTTP request, but it has no idea what it's asking for or what it's getting back.

It looks like most of the really frequently used values (here's a query for that) are pretty useful, and a bot could make queries based on them. The most-used bad values I'm seeing are REST (Q749568) (80 uses), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (Q8777) (25 uses), and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (Q44484) (18 uses). There should probably be a none-of constraint on P2700 for REST (Q749568) since it is in no way a protocol; it's a loose set of principles for designing APIs, not a protocol in and of itself. HTTP and HTTPS technically are protocols, but they're not useful information in this case. If you're calling something an "API endpoint URL", generally that means you've added a layer of structure on top of HTTP; otherwise, we would generally just call that a website, not an API endpoint.

I think the Wikidata usage instructions should explain that the value needs to be the highest-level protocol, and explicitly mention that it shouldn't be HTTP or HTTPS. We could also mention that "somevalue" can be used if it's a custom API that doesn't have its own item yet (though I don't think the data provides much value in that case). It might also be useful to create a list of suggested values – I'm sad to see that some really useful protocols like OData and IIIF have so few uses. –IagoQnsi (talk) 02:51, 1 August 2025 (UTC)