Search API
A bounded public search API, using the same relevance and admission rules as the website. No key is required.
GET https://wren.is/api.php?q=sourdough&page=1
The response contains up to ten results, strict match count, excerpts, match-band labels and dated Report Card references. Reading grades are separate from relevance. Optional parameters: reading_grade=A|B|C|D|F, interruptions=none|low, and version_only=1. Publication operators after:YYYY-MM-DD and before:YYYY-MM-DD may appear in the search.
Limits: 512 characters per search, pages 1–20, twenty requests per minute. Requests share the site's bounded search capacity. Status 400 means invalid input, 429 means slow down, 409 means a snapshot expired or serving evidence changed, and 503 means try again later. Echo the returned snapshot on subsequent pages to refuse changed index contents. Optional candidate_window=500 expands filter inspection. The API is version 1; unknown fields should be ignored.
related_results_limited: true means a broader related-results band reached its candidate limit after a verified task answer was found. Only completed bands are returned; this is not a complete related-results ranking. The exact-search count and strict/answer pagination remain unchanged (with their existing inspected-candidate scope when optional filters apply). Clients must disclose this limitation alongside the results. A false value does not claim exhaustive corpus coverage. Backend failures, changing serving evidence, and failed strict searches still return an error.
Wren keeps private daily query counts for first-page API searches without optional result filters, without visitor identifiers or individual request events. Live counters retain 30 UTC dates; see Privacy for collection limits and backup retention. Clicks are not recorded. Rate limiting uses a separate short-lived salted stand-in for a network address. Cloudflare can see requests as described in Privacy. Full article text is available only from the separately verified licensed reading catalog.