4chan
4chan is a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images across topic-specific boards. 4chan exposes a read-only JSON API (launched September 2012) that serves the same board, thread, catalog, and archive data consumed by the public site via static JSON files at a.4cdn.org. The API supports GET/HEAD/OPTIONS only — there is no posting, authentication, or write surface.
Limited machine-readable signal and partial portal coverage — documentation a human can read, but little a machine or agent can consume without scraping.
API Evangelist profiles 4chan the way a machine reads it — 58 machine-readable artifacts across 6 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — 4chan scores 35.8/100 (thin), with a separate agent-readiness read of 26/100 (agent aware). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance. Every facet and dimension name is a link: it opens that measurement's page on APIs.io, where the rating runs across the whole catalog — the exact checks that feed it, how every profiled provider distributes on it, and who is at the top of it.
Put this on your own site. The badge is drawn live from 4chan's current Kin Score — paste it once and it updates itself every time the score is recomputed. It follows your visitor's light or dark setting, and it links back here so anyone who sees it can read the full breakdown.
<!-- Kin Score · API Evangelist -->
<a href="https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/4chan/"
title="4chan on API Evangelist — API profile and Kin Score">
<img src="https://apis.io/badge/4chan.svg"
alt="4chan Kin Score — API readiness rating by API Evangelist" width="150" height="150" loading="lazy">
</a>
[](https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/4chan/)
<!-- Kin Score · API Evangelist -->
<a href="https://providers.apievangelist.com/providers/4chan/"
title="4chan on API Evangelist — API profile and Kin Score">
<img src="https://apis.io/badge/4chan/card.svg"
alt="4chan Kin Score — API readiness rating by API Evangelist" width="340" height="120" loading="lazy">
</a>
More shapes, themes and sizes → · Score as JSON · How badges work
How we profile 4chan
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for 4chan. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 6
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
4chan Archive API
Per-board list of OP numbers for closed, archived threads.
4chan Boards API
List of all boards on 4chan and 4channel and their per-board settings.
4chan Catalog API
Per-board catalog snapshot containing every OP and its preview replies, grouped by index page.
4chan Indexes API
Per-board, per-page index document of threads (each with a posts array including the OP and a small number of preview replies).
4chan Threadlist API
Per-board summary list of every live thread (id, last-modified, reply count) grouped by index page.
4chan Threads API
Single-thread document containing the OP and every reply.
Open Collections 8
Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
API Collection
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive Boards API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive Catalog API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive Indexes API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive Threadlist API
OPEN COLLECTION4chan Read-Only JSON Archive Threads API
OPEN COLLECTIONScroll within the panel for all 8 ·
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the things the Kin Score reads for access clarity — renamed from commercial clarity in rubric 0.12, because a free statutory interface has access terms and no commercial ones.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
4Chan Plans Pricing
PLANSRate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
4Chan Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSSemantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
4Chan Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 2
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
4chan API Rules
SPECTRAL4chan API Rules
SPECTRALJSON Schema 13
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
ArchiveResponse
JSON SCHEMABoard
JSON SCHEMABoardsResponse
JSON SCHEMACatalogPage
JSON SCHEMACatalogResponse
JSON SCHEMACooldowns
JSON SCHEMAIndexPageResponse
JSON SCHEMAIndexPageThread
JSON SCHEMAPost
JSON SCHEMAThreadResponse
JSON SCHEMAThreadlistEntry
JSON SCHEMAThreadlistPage
JSON SCHEMAThreadlistResponse
JSON SCHEMAScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
JSON Structure 13
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
4Chan Api Archive Response Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Board Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Boards Response Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Catalog Page Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Catalog Response Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Cooldowns Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Index Page Response Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Index Page Thread Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Post Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Thread Response Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Threadlist Entry Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Threadlist Page Structure
JSON STRUCTURE4Chan Api Threadlist Response Structure
JSON STRUCTUREScroll within the panel for all 13 ·
Examples 10
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Scroll within the panel for all 10 ·
Security Posture 2
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Agentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Resources
Every other property we hold for 4chan — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Design & Contract 3
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Build 10
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Scroll within the panel for all 10 ·
Access & Security 2
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 3
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 1
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 1
The organization behind the API
Other 1
Properties that don't map to a standard resource type
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/4chan · machine-readable index on apis.io
This is an independent, third-party profile of 4chan, published by API Evangelist. We do not operate, host, resell, or support these APIs, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by the company unless stated above. Everything here is built from publicly available information — the company's own site, developer portal, documentation, public repositories, and the specifications it publishes for public use. Nothing is obtained by breaching a system, defeating an access control, or using credentials.
The Kin Score and Agent Readiness rating are independently calculated assessments of a company's public API artifacts, scored against a published rubric. They are not certifications, endorsements, security assessments, or audits.
Corrections, re-scores, and removal are free — no partnership or purchase required, and you do not need to justify the request. A removed company is recorded as unrated, never scored zero for having asked. Acknowledgement within one business day; removal within two.
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