Parameters

• name: User name.
• password: Password (ignored if mailpassword is set).
• domain: Domain for external authentication.
• token: Account creation token obtained in first request.
• email: Email address of user (required if either mailpassword or $wgEmailConfirmToEdit are set).
• realname: Real name of user. Many wikis have realname disabled via $wgHiddenPrefs . To check whether realname is enabled or not, request api.php?action=query&meta=userinfo&uiprop=realname. If you get no realname property back in the response, realname is a hidden preference.
• mailpassword: If set to any value, a random password will be generated and e-mailed to the user (instead of using the password parameter).
• reason: Reason for creating the account. Will be shown in the account creation log (example).
• language: Language code to set as default for the user.

Extended parameters when used with Extension:ConfirmEdit (except ReCaptcha):

• captchaid: Previously-provided CAPTCHA ID to send with followup request, if captcha was required.
• captchaword: User-provided answer of CAPTCHA to send with followup request, if captcha was required.

Example

Note: In this example, all parameters are passed in a GET request just for the sake of simplicity. However, action=createaccount requires POST requests; GET requests will cause an error.

Step 1: Retrieve token to create an account for GymBeauWhales

We should now receive a response like:

{
    "createaccount": {
        "result": "NeedToken", 
        "token": "387bc54bd0ec29333178800ce4213306"
    }
}

We take the token given here, and add it to the request:

Step 2: Actually create GymBeauWhales account

Assuming everything works, we should get a result like:

{
    "createaccount": {
        "result": "Success", 
        "token": "387bc54bd0ec29333178800ce4213306", 
        "userid": 1234, 
        "username": "GymBeauWhales"
    }
}

And GymBeauWhales@example.com would get an email with instructions on how to log in.

CAPTCHA

When used with Extension:ConfirmEdit, a CAPTCHA may be presented for new account creations. This is supported via extension in the API here.

When submitting per the above rules and receiving a response, you may also receive a captcha node in the return data, similar to what is sometimes returned by action=edit.

For a text-based CAPTCHA:

{
  "createaccount": {
    "result": "NeedCaptcha",
    "captcha": {
      "type": "simple",
      "mime": "text/plain",
      "id": "323035635",
      "question": "77+5"
    }
  }
}

For an image-based CAPTCHA:

{
  "createaccount": {
    "result": "NeedCaptcha",
    "captcha": {
      "type": "image",
      "mime": "image/png",
      "id": "1147869849",
      "url": "/core/index.php?title=Special:Captcha/image&wpCaptchaId=1147869849"
    }
  }
}

Be aware that the URL may be site-relative or protocol-relative.

When you receive such a response, you need to submit a third response, which is similar to the one submitted in step 2 but contains the necessary responses. By default, you should return the captcha id in the captchaid parameter, and the value (solution) of the captcha in the captchaword parameter, however some captcha modules, like ReCaptcha, use different parameters. Check the module's documentation for specifics.

As of the current code (see ) you won't receive the captcha prompt response until after basic validation errors have been taken care of.

Possible outputs

The result value can have one of three values (n.b., values are lower-case prior to 1.23):

• NeedToken: A token is needed. A token parameter should also be set with a token to use.

  { "createaccount": { "result": "NeedToken", "token": "8217b293a6bd0bba84cc1cb661a06a5d" } }
  

  • If you get a NeedToken result when you are expecting a success result, make sure the token you are sending is correct, and that you are sending along any cookies sent by the API.
• Success: Everything worked

  { "createaccount": { "result": "Success", "token": "8217b293a6bd0bba84cc1cb661a06a5d", "userid": 1234, "username": "Foo" } }
  

• Warning: Not used in core, however extensions can (in theory) add warnings, in which case the result attribute will be warning. However, this still generally means the account was created successfully.

Possible errors

All errors are formatted as:

{
    "error": {
        "code": "code", 
        "info": "info"
    }
}

Many of the info codes to this module correspond to system messages. As a result the info part may change and in particular will vary with language.