canonical: https://jentic.com/apis/nytimes.com

# The New York Times APIs

The New York Times publishes a family of read-only APIs over its journalism and its editorial metadata. An agent can search the article archive back to 1851, pull current bestseller and movie-review lists, see which stories readers are sharing, and follow a live wire of newly published articles. Every API is read-only and shares one developer key. The specifications are the Times's own.

## For AI agents

Read New York Times journalism programmatically: search the full article archive, pull bestseller and movie-review lists, track the most-shared stories, and follow a real-time newswire across 11 APIs with one key.

## Scope

Use for: New York Times editorial content and its metadata

Not supported:
- Subscriptions
- Account billing
- Payments
- Ad buying

## APIs

| API | Category | Endpoints | Description |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Books API | media | 6 | Look up NYT Best Sellers rankings, list metadata, and book reviews for any title or author across more than 50 list categories. |
| Community API | media | 4 | Read NYT user comments by article URL, by user, by date, or as a recent feed across the site. |
| Most Popular API | media | 3 | Get the most-emailed, most-shared, and most-viewed NYT articles by section over the last 1, 7, or 30 days. |
| Movie Reviews API | media | 3 | Search NYT movie reviews by keyword, filter Critics' Picks, and look up NYT film critic profiles. |
| Times Newswire API | media | 3 | Stream the latest NYT and AP article URLs and metadata as soon as they are published, filterable by source and section. |
| Semantic API | data-enrichment | 2 | Resolve people, organizations, descriptors, and other named entities against the NYT controlled vocabulary and return linked-data records. |
| Archive API | media | 1 | Retrieve a complete month of New York Times article metadata going back to 1851 from a single year/month endpoint, authenticated with an API key in the query string. |
| Article Search API | media | 1 | Run keyword and filter queries across NYT articles from 1851 to today and return headline, abstract, lead paragraph, and metadata fields, authenticated with an API key in the query string. |
| Geographic API | data-enrichment | 1 | Resolve place names against the NYT geographic controlled vocabulary and return linked location data with coordinates and article references. |
| TimesTags API | data-enrichment | 1 | Get autocomplete-style tag suggestions from the NYT controlled vocabulary as a user types a partial query. |
| Top Stories API | media | 1 | Get the editor-curated NYT articles from any section front, including home, world, business, technology, opinion, and arts. |

## Which API to use

| Need | API | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Find specific articles by keyword, date, or filter | article_search | Full-text query over current and recent coverage with facets and date ranges. |
| Pull historical article metadata in bulk for a whole month | archive | Returns every article's metadata for a given year and month in one call. |
| See what readers are reading right now | most_popular_api | Most viewed, most emailed, and most shared, ranked by the Times's own counts. |
| Follow the live feed of newly published articles | timeswire | Real-time stream of articles as they go live, by section. |
| Get the current curated headlines by section | top_stories | Editor-picked front-page and section lineups, not a search result. |
| Get bestseller lists and book reviews | books_api | The published bestseller lists by category and date, plus book reviews. |
| Get film reviews and critics' picks | movie_reviews | Searchable Times film reviews with the critics' picks flag. |
| Resolve a person, place, or topic to a Times tag | semantic_api | Maps free text to the editorial concepts the Times tags articles with. |
| Autocomplete editorial tags as a user types | times_tags | Tag suggestions for people, places, and subjects, for query building. |
| Resolve geographic locations referenced in coverage | geo_api | Geographic lookups tied to the Times's location vocabulary. |

## Cross-API use cases

### Morning editorial briefing

Build a morning brief that pairs the curated front page with what readers are actually reading and the latest wire. The agent reads Top Stories for the editor-picked headlines, Most Popular for the most-emailed and most-viewed pieces of the day, and the Times Newswire for articles published in the last hour. The result is one digest that reflects both editorial judgment and reader behavior.

Example prompt: Fetch the 'home' Top Stories section, the most emailed articles for the last day, and the latest Newswire items, then assemble a 10-item briefing grouped by section.

### Research a topic across the Times corpus

Research how the Times has covered a topic over time. The agent searches current and recent coverage with Article Search, pulls month-by-month metadata from the Archive for the historical record, and resolves the people, places, and organizations involved through the Semantic API. Together they turn one query into a sourced timeline with tagged entities.

Example prompt: Search Article Search for 'climate policy' in 2024, pull the Archive metadata for the three months with the most hits, and resolve the top three tagged people via the Semantic API.

### Culture recommendations

Recommend what to read and watch from Times editorial sources. The agent pulls the current bestseller lists from the Books API and cross-references critics' picks from the Movie Reviews API, so each recommendation cites the Times rather than a generic rating. Useful for a culture concierge or a weekly newsletter agent.

Example prompt: Get this week's 'hardcover-fiction' bestseller list and the latest critics' picks, then return five paired book-and-film recommendations.

## Why Jentic

- **Setup:** You create one New York Times developer key, enable the Times APIs you want on it, and register it once with Jentic. From then on an agent reaches every enabled Times API through the same search, load, and execute calls, without per-API wiring.
- **Permission scoping:** You decide which Times APIs the key can reach by enabling them in the developer portal, and which operations your agent is allowed to call through Jentic, so a research agent can be limited to read-only article search without touching anything else.
- **Credential handling:** Your single New York Times developer key is stored encrypted by your own Jentic One instance and injected at execution time. The agent receives results, never the raw key, and the one key covers all 11 Times APIs.
- **Discovery method:** An agent searches by intent, for example 'find the most emailed articles', and Jentic returns the matching operation from across the 11 Times APIs with its input schema, so the agent calls the right API without knowing which one it is.

## Related vendors

- **The Guardian** — Open-access news content and archive API; a free alternative for full-text article search and tagged content.
- **NewsAPI** — Aggregated headlines across many publishers; use when you need broad multi-source coverage rather than Times editorial sources.

## FAQ

### Can AI agents use New York Times APIs?

Yes. All 11 New York Times APIs have OpenAPI specifications in the Jentic API Directory, so an agent can discover and call them by intent. Through Jentic the agent searches for an operation, loads its schema, and executes, without reading the Times documentation first. Install Jentic One (self-hosted) from https://github.com/jentic/jentic-one to get started.

### Do I need a separate key for each New York Times API?

No. The Times uses one developer key across all of its APIs. You create the key once and enable each API on it. Through Jentic the key is stored encrypted and injected at execution time, so it never enters the agent's context.

### Does The New York Times publish OpenAPI specs?

The specifications in the Jentic API Directory for the Times APIs are vendor-official, sourced from the Times developer portal. The operations, parameters, and responses match what the Times documents itself.

### How do I connect my agent to the New York Times APIs?

Install Jentic One on your own infrastructure from its GitHub repo, register your New York Times developer key with it once, and add the Times APIs from the Jentic API Directory. Your agent then searches by intent, for example 'search New York Times articles', and Jentic returns the matching operation across the Times APIs with its input schema.

### Which New York Times API should I use to find articles?

Use Article Search for keyword and filter queries over current and recent coverage, the Archive API for bulk month-by-month metadata, and the Times Newswire for articles as they are published. Most Popular returns what readers are reading rather than a search.

### What can I build by combining New York Times APIs?

Common patterns pair editorial and behavioral signals: a morning briefing from Top Stories, Most Popular, and the Newswire, or a research timeline from Article Search, the Archive, and the Semantic API. One key covers every API a workflow touches.