Nytimes Community API
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For Agents
Read NYT user comments by article URL, by user, by date, or as a recent feed across the site.
Use for: Get all comments posted on a specific NYT article, Find recent comments across the New York Times site, Retrieve every comment a specific NYT user has left, List comments posted on January 15, 2024
Not supported: Does not post, edit, or moderate comments and does not handle replies or recommendations — use for read-only retrieval of NYT comment threads only.
The New York Times Community API provides read access to comments left by registered users on NYT articles. Agents can pull recent comments site-wide, filter by article URL, retrieve a specific user's comment history, or fetch comments posted within a date range. Each comment record includes the author's display name, comment body, recommendation count, NYT pick flag, and the article URL it was posted on. The API is officially marked deprecated by NYT, but the endpoints continue to respond and remain useful for archival research and sentiment analysis on legacy NYT comment threads.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Community API to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Community API, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
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Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Community API.
Pull the most recent comments posted across all NYT articles
Retrieve every comment thread attached to a specific article URL
Fetch a single user's full comment history by display name
Filter comments to a specific publication date range
Surface NYT-picked comments via the editors_selection flag in responses
Page through long comment threads using the offset parameter
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Community API for, with concrete tasks.
★ Comment Thread Archival
Pull and store the full comment thread for a NYT article for archival or research purposes. The /user-content/url.json endpoint accepts the article URL and returns every comment with body text, author display name, recommendation count, and the editors_selection flag identifying NYT picks. Pagination via the offset parameter handles threads with hundreds of entries.
Call /user-content/url.json?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/01/opinion/example.html with offset 0, then page through with offset increments of 25 until results are empty.
Sentiment Analysis on Recent Coverage
Feed recent NYT comments into a downstream sentiment classifier. The /user-content/recent.json endpoint returns the latest comments site-wide so an agent can sample the current discussion volume and tone. Combined with article URL filtering, this supports near-real-time analysis of reader response to fresh coverage.
Fetch /user-content/recent.json with offset 0, extract the commentBody field for each entry, and pipe to a sentiment classifier returning per-article averages.
User Comment History Research
Retrieve the full comment history of a specific NYT user by display name to study contribution patterns, frequency, and topic clustering. The /user-content/user.json endpoint accepts a userDisplayName parameter and pages through the user's published comments.
Call /user-content/user.json?userDisplayName='Jane Smith'&offset=0 and continue paging in 25-comment increments until the response array is empty.
Agent-Driven Comment Lookup via Jentic
An AI research assistant uses Jentic to call the deprecated NYT Community API at runtime when a user asks for comment context on a story. The agent searches Jentic by intent, loads the operation schema, and executes the call without manually wiring auth or pagination.
Search Jentic for 'get NYT article comments', load the /user-content/url.json operation, and execute with the target article URL.
Key Endpoints
4 endpoints — the new york times community api provides read access to comments left by registered users on nyt articles.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/user-content/recent.json
List recent comments across all NYT articles
GET
/user-content/url.json
Get comments for a specific article URL
GET
/user-content/user.json
Get all comments by a specific NYT user
GET
/user-content/by-date.json
Get comments posted on a specific date
GET
/user-content/recent.json
List recent comments across all NYT articles
GET
/user-content/url.json
Get comments for a specific article URL
GET
/user-content/user.json
Get all comments by a specific NYT user
GET
/user-content/by-date.json
Get comments posted on a specific date
Why Jentic?
Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.
Credential isolation
The NYT api-key is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault and injected into the api-key query parameter at execution time. The same credential covers all NYT developer APIs registered to a workspace, so a single rotation updates Books, Community, Top Stories, and the others together.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search Jentic for 'get NYT article comments' or 'look up reader comment history' and Jentic returns the matching /user-content endpoint with its parameter schema, removing the need to read the deprecated NYT documentation.
Time to first call
Direct integration: a few hours to wire the api-key, paginate the offset parameter, and parse the comment payload. Through Jentic: under 15 minutes.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Community API through Jentic.
What authentication does the NYT Community API use?
The Community API uses an API key passed as the api-key query parameter. Provision a key at developer.nytimes.com. Through Jentic, the key is held in the vault and injected at request time, so it never appears in the agent's context.
Is the NYT Community API still active?
NYT marks this API as deprecated in their developer portal, meaning no new features will land and SLA is not guaranteed. The 4 endpoints continue to respond as of this writing, so the API remains usable for archival lookups and historical research, but production systems should plan for eventual sunset.
Can I retrieve every comment on a specific article?
Yes. Call GET /user-content/url.json with the article URL and page using the offset parameter in increments of 25 until the results array is empty. Each response includes commentBody, userDisplayName, recommendations, and the editorsSelection flag.
What are the rate limits for the NYT Community API?
NYT enforces 500 requests per day and 5 requests per minute per API key across all NYT developer APIs combined. Build in retry-after handling when reading large comment threads.
How do I pull recent NYT comments through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'get recent NYT comments', load the /user-content/recent.json operation, and execute it. The response returns the latest site-wide comments with article URL, body, and recommendation count.
Can I post or moderate comments through this API?
No. The Community API is read-only. There are no endpoints for creating, editing, deleting, or recommending comments, so it cannot be used for moderation or community management workflows.
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