Help:Logging in to third-party tools

In order to use bots, external tools or scripts such as AutoWikiBrowser or Pywikibot, you must create a special login called a BotPassword. Your regular password can only be used in the browser.

NOTE: This process is not exclusive to accounts that are flagged as bots. Any account that logs in via a third-party tool will need to follow this process.

Why should you use BotPasswords?

BotPasswords has several benefits:

  • Let you log in to the MediaWiki API without sharing your main password.
  • Can be limited to specific tasks (like only editing).
  • If a user's bot credentials are ever lost or compromised, it can be deleted without changing your main password.

However, a bot run through a script doesn't have the same editing process as a regular user logged in through their web browser.

  • Bot logins are only accepted via HTTPS. Bot logins from the non-secure HTTP protocol will be rejected.
  • Bot logins can only access the MediaWiki API, not the normal web wiki interface.

Creating a bot password

To create new BotPassword:

  1. Log in to any wiki using your bot account.
  2. Navigate to Special:BotPasswords.
  3. Pick a name for the bot login, so you can easily identify it later.
  4. Select the permissions the bot needs.
    • High-volume editing, Edit existing pages, and Create, edit, and move pages should be sufficient for most bot tasks. High-volume editing must be enabled if you want the edits your bot makes to be filterable as bot activity in Recent Changes.
    • Note: You can only successfully grant permissions that your bot account already has. For example, granting the "delete pages" permission where your bot account is not a content moderator or above will not actually grant your bot the ability to delete pages at that wiki.
  5. (Optional) Set allowed IP ranges to limit which computers can use this password.
  6. Click "Create".
  7. Copy the generated username and password. You won’t be able to see the password again.
    If you ever lose your password, you can return to Special:BotPasswords to create a new password.

Best practices

The following is all optional and, if you're feeling confused, you shouldn't bother reading this (at least yet).

  • Name your passwords in the way you can easily identify them later (e.g. "Desktop AWB" or "Laptop PWB").
  • Never share a password across different tools and devices - if any of them gets compromised, you would have to reset your password for all of them.
  • Don't give both "edit site CSS & JS" and "high-volume editing" to the same password. If you ever need to do batch edits of CSS or JS pages and you know in advance you will be doing this, you can either temporarily add the right as needed or make a new password that has both but, after you're done with that task, you should revert the rights or delete the temporary password. This is a good way to ensure you never accidentally cause sweeping code issues because you had a mistake in a regular expression or any number of other issues.

Using a bot password

Note: Tools that run in the browser (like MassEdit) do not need BotPasswords. Just log in with the bot account normally.

There are two common formats for using the BotPassword:

  • Some tools use: Username@BotName as a name and the bot password.
  • Others use: Username and BotName@Password as a password.

Managing an existing bot password

To manage an existing bot login, go to Special:BotPasswords on any Fandom/Gamepedia wiki and select a bot name.

  • To reset the bot login password, select "Reset the password" and click "Update".
  • To change the bot login's permissions, select or deselect the appropriate permissions in the displayed list and click "Update".
  • To delete the bot password, click "Delete".

See also

Further help and feedback