How to Get Recommended Articles from Medium

(Using Medium API JS Library)

When you read an interesting article on Medium, you might often wonder what other content aligns with your interests. Medium’s recommendation system addresses this by providing a curated list of related articles.

Leveraging Medium’s API, you can fetch these recommendations programmatically to enhance content discovery and user engagement. Whether you're building a personalized reading app, creating a newsletter, or conducting analytics, this guide will show you how to fetch recommended articles using JavaScript.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the implementation, ensure the following prerequisites are met:

• Node.js Installed: Ensure you have Node.js installed on your system to run JavaScript code in a server-side environment.
• Medium API Access: Obtain an API key from RapidAPI for accessing the Medium API.
How to Subscribe to Medium API and Get Your API Key from RapidAPI Platform
• Install Required Packages: Install the following packages using npm:
  • medium-api-js: A JavaScript wrapper for interacting with the Medium API.
  • dotenv: For managing environment variables securely.

  npm install medium-api-js dotenv

• Environment Setup: Create a .env file in your project directory and add your Medium API key as follows:

  RAPIDAPI_KEY=your_api_key_here

Code Explanation

Here’s a step-by-step explanation of how to fetch recommended articles using Medium API:

Import Necessary Modules

import Medium from 'medium-api-js';
import dotenv from 'dotenv';

dotenv.config();

• Medium: This is the Medium API wrapper that simplifies the process of interacting with Medium’s endpoints.
• dotenv: This package loads environment variables from a .env file, keeping sensitive information like API keys secure.
• dotenv.config(): This initializes the dotenv package to load variables from the .env file into process.env.

Initialize Medium API Client

const medium = new Medium(process.env.RAPIDAPI_KEY);

• process.env.RAPIDAPI_KEY: Retrieves the Medium API key from the environment variables.
• Medium(process.env.RAPIDAPI_KEY): Initializes the Medium API client with the provided key.

Specify the Article ID

const articleId = '67fa62fc1971';

• articleId: Represents the ID of the Medium article for which you want to fetch recommendations. Replace this ID with the desired article ID.

Fetch Recommended Articles

medium.getRecommendedArticles(articleId).then(data => {
    console.log('Recommended Articles:', data);
});

• medium.getRecommendedArticles(articleId): Calls the API to fetch recommended articles for the specified article ID.
• .then(data => { ... }): Handles the promise returned by the API call, logging the recommended articles to the console.

Running the Code

To run the code, execute the following command in your terminal:

node getRecommendedArticles.js

Output and Explanation

When the code runs successfully, it fetches a list of recommended articles for the specified article and logs it to the console. A sample output looks like this:

• id: The ID of the article for which recommendations were fetched.
• recommended_articles: An array of article IDs representing articles recommended by Medium’s recommendation algorithm.

Potential Use Cases

• Content Discovery Tools: Enhance content discovery by recommending related articles to users.
• Automated Newsletter Generation: Generate personalized newsletters by including recommended articles.
• Content Curation: Build curated lists of articles for specific topics or user segments.

Summary

Fetching recommended articles using Medium’s API is a powerful way to enhance user experience by providing contextually relevant content. This guide has outlined the steps to implement this functionality, explained the code in detail, and explored potential applications.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out at nishu@mediumapi.com.