canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/dev.to

# DEV Community APIs

DEV Community (dev.to) is a developer blogging platform built on the open-source Forem software. Its APIs let you publish, list, and update articles, read comments and reactions, manage organizations, moderate users on a Forem instance, and search the public article corpus by keyword, tag, or username. The Forem API V1 covers the full read and write content model with an api-key header, while the ChatGPT plugin spec exposes a single anonymous article-search endpoint aimed at language-model recommendation.

## For AI agents

Across DEV Community's APIs an agent can publish and update articles, read comments and reactions, manage organizations, run Forem moderation actions, and search the public article corpus by keyword, tag, or username for content recommendation.

## Scope

Use for: Publishing and updating DEV Community articles, reading comments and reactions, managing organizations, moderating a Forem instance, and searching the public article corpus by keyword, tag, or username.

Not supported:
- direct messaging
- payments
- comment writes
- full-text comment search
- real-time streaming

## APIs

| API | Category | Endpoints | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Forem API V1 | social-media | 58 | Publish, list, and moderate articles, comments, organizations, and users on DEV Community and other Forem instances through 58 Forem API V1 endpoints. |
| DEV Community ChatGPT Plugin API | ai-ml | 1 | Search DEV Community articles by keyword, tag, or username through a single GET /api/articles/search endpoint, suitable as an LLM tool for content recommendation. |

## Which API to use

| Need | API | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Search or discover published DEV articles by keyword, tag, or username with no credential | chatgpt | The ChatGPT plugin spec exposes a single anonymous GET /api/articles/search endpoint built for read-only recommendation, so it needs no api-key. |
| Publish, update, or moderate content and read full articles, comments, and organizations | main | The Forem API V1 carries all 58 write and personal-read endpoints and authenticates with the api-key header; the chatgpt spec cannot write or read full bodies. |

## Cross-API use cases

### Discover then publish a follow-up article

An agent uses the anonymous search endpoint to find existing DEV articles on a topic, checks what has already been written, then drafts and publishes a new piece through the authenticated Forem API. The read-only search needs no credential, and only the publish step uses the api-key.

Example prompt: GET /api/articles/search?q={topic} to list existing coverage, then POST /api/articles with title, body_markdown, and tags to publish the new piece.

### Topic newsletter with author context

Curate a weekly developer newsletter by searching articles for a tag, then enriching each pick with author profile and comment counts from the Forem API. Search surfaces the candidates anonymously; the Forem API adds the reader-facing detail behind the api-key.

Example prompt: GET /api/articles/search?tag={tag} to gather candidates, then for each result GET /api/comments?a_id={id} to attach engagement before assembling the digest.

### Recommendation bot with moderation guardrails

A community bot recommends DEV articles to users via the anonymous search endpoint and, for operators, wires Forem moderation actions such as suspend or mark spam behind the same agent. The search side runs credential-free while moderation stays gated on an admin-level api-key.

Example prompt: GET /api/articles/search?q={query} to answer a reader, and separately PUT /api/users/{id}/suspend when an operator flags an offending account.

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** Wiring these APIs by hand means setting the api-key header for Forem writes, tracking which of the 58 endpoints change state, and handling the anonymous search separately. Once Jentic One is installed, you or your agent can find and add either DEV Community API from the Jentic directory to your workspace and call it by intent.
- **Permission scoping:** Your own rules decide which DEV operations the agent may use, so you can allow anonymous article search and drafting while withholding state-changing calls such as suspending users or publishing until you add them.
- **Credential handling:** Your DEV api-key is stored encrypted by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time, so it never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context; the anonymous search endpoint needs no credential at all.
- **Discovery method:** Agents search the Jentic directory by intent such as 'search dev.to articles' or 'publish a DEV article', and Jentic returns the matching operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right endpoint without browsing the reference docs.

## Related vendors

- **Medium** — Another publishing platform with an API for creating posts, a common cross-posting target alongside DEV.
- **Hashnode** — Developer-focused blogging platform whose API is a direct alternative for programmatic technical publishing.
- **GitHub** — Repository and gist APIs that pair with DEV writing when articles reference or embed code.
- **Product Hunt** — Community platform whose API suits product-launch posts rather than long-form developer writing.

## FAQ

### Which DEV Community API should an agent start with?

Start with the ChatGPT plugin search endpoint for anonymous, read-only article discovery. Move to the Forem API V1 when the task needs full article bodies, comments, organizations, publishing, or moderation, since those live only on the authenticated surface.

### Do both DEV Community APIs use the same credential?

No. The Forem API V1 authenticates writes and personal reads with an api-key header issued from your DEV settings, while the ChatGPT plugin search endpoint is anonymous and needs no key. Only tasks that touch the Forem API require a credential.

### Can an agent both find and publish DEV articles?

Yes. Use the anonymous search endpoint to discover what already exists on a topic, then publish or update through the Forem API V1 with POST or PUT /api/articles. The two steps combine cleanly because only the publish step needs the api-key.

### Do these APIs work with Forem instances other than dev.to?

The Forem API V1 powers DEV Community and other Forem-based communities, so the same endpoints work against self-hosted Forem instances with an instance-specific api-key. The ChatGPT plugin search endpoint is scoped to DEV Community's own article corpus.

### What kinds of tasks are out of scope across these APIs?

Neither API handles direct messaging, payments, or comment writes, and there is no full-text search across comments. The APIs cover article publishing and reads, reactions, organizations, moderation, and article search.

### Can an agent moderate a Forem community through these APIs?

Yes, with an admin-level api-key on the Forem API V1. It can suspend users, mark them spam or trusted, and create users. The ChatGPT plugin search endpoint has no moderation ability.