How to Get Root Tags from Medium

Using the Medium API (JavaScript)

Fetching root tags from Medium can help developers, content creators, or businesses organize and categorize content effectively. Tags like "technology," "self-improvement," or "culture" act as thematic identifiers that make articles more discoverable on Medium.

This guide explains how to programmatically retrieve these root tags using the medium-api-js package, a wrapper for the Medium API.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have the following:

• Node.js Installed: You need Node.js installed on your system to run JavaScript code.
• Medium API Access: A RapidAPI key is required to authenticate your requests to Medium’s API.
  How to Subscribe to Medium API and Get Your API Key from RapidAPI Platform
• dotenv Library: Install the dotenv library to securely store and access environment variables.

To install the necessary packages, use the following commands:

npm install medium-api-js dotenv

Step-by-Step Code Explanation

Importing Required Libraries

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

dotenv.config();

• Medium: This is the Medium API wrapper that provides a simple interface for making requests to the Medium platform.
• dotenv: This library allows you to securely store API keys and other sensitive configuration details in a .env file. By calling dotenv.config(), you load the configuration variables into process.env.

Initializing the Medium API Client

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

• process.env.RAPIDAPI_KEY: Retrieves your API key stored in the .env file. This API key is essential for authenticating requests to Medium’s API.

Fetching Root Tags

medium.getRootTags()
    .then(data => {
        console.log('Root Tags:', data);
    });

• getRootTags(): This method fetches the top-level tags available on the Medium platform. These root tags represent major content categories.
• .then(data => { ... }): Handles the promise returned by getRootTags() and logs the result to the console.

Command to Run the Code

To execute the script, save it as getRootTags.js and run the following command in your terminal:

node getRootTags.js

Output Explanation

When the code runs successfully, it fetches the root tags from Medium and logs them to the console. For example:

• root_tags: An array containing the top-level categories available on Medium.
• count: The total number of root tags retrieved.

Potential Use Cases

• Content Categorization: Build tools to categorize articles or blogs under the most relevant root tags.
• Content Discovery: Enhance search functionality by integrating Medium’s root tags into your application.
• Custom Feed Curation: Create personalized feeds or recommendation engines using these tags.

Summary

By fetching root tags from Medium, you can gain valuable insights into the platform’s organizational structure and enhance your application’s capabilities.

This guide covered how to use the medium-api-js package to retrieve and utilize these tags effectively. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out at nishu@mediumapi.com.