Entertainment — entry 005 of 9
JokeAPI
JokeAPI (Sv443) serves programmable jokes across 7 categories — Misc, Programming, Dark, Pun, Spooky, Christmas, and a catch-all Any — with content filtering by flag (nsfw, religious, political, racist, sexist, explicit) so integrators can enforce a safe-mode. A single GET can return the response as JSON, XML, YAML, or plain text via a `format` query parameter, and jokes come as either single one-liners or two-part setup/delivery pairs. It's free, keyless, open source, and self-hosted by its maintainer with no paid tier.
JokeAPI (Sv443) is a keyless joke API filterable by category and content flags. A live GET to `/joke/Programming?type=single` returned one one-liner joke as JSON, and the same call with `format=xml` returned the identical joke re-serialized as `application/xml` — both confirmed by this run's probes, not carried over from the stored summary.
GreatAPIs Score
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<a href="https://greatapis.com/api/jokeapi/"><img src="https://greatapis.com/badge/jokeapi.svg" alt="Scored 80 on greatapis.com"></a>Auth quickstart
- No API key required — the live probes above returned data with no auth header sent at all.
- Every response carries live rate-limit headers — `ratelimit-limit: 120`, `ratelimit-remaining`, `ratelimit-reset`, and `retry-after: 60` — confirmed on this run's probes, so read `ratelimit-remaining` before looping calls rather than guessing at a budget.
Your key is stored only in this browser (localStorage) and sent directly to the API — never to greatapis.
Get a single Programming joke as JSON
GEThttps://v2.jokeapi.dev/joke/Programming?type=single
{
"error": false,
"category": "Programming",
"type": "single",
"joke": "Eight bytes walk into a bar.\nThe bartender asks, \"Can I get you anything?\"\n\"Yeah,\" reply the bytes.\n\"Make us a double.\"",
"flags": {
"nsfw": false,
"religious": false,
"political": false,
"racist": false,
"sexist": false,
"explicit": false
},
"id": 34,
"safe": true,
"lang": "en"
}Captured byte-for-byte from this run's live probe; JokeAPI picks randomly from the matching pool per call, so a repeat request can return a different `id`/`joke` from the same category.
Developer reference
https://v2.jokeapi.dev120 requests per 60s window, confirmed live via response headers (ratelimit-limit: 120, ratelimit-remaining, ratelimit-reset, retry-after: 60)
Gotchas & limits
- `format=xml` genuinely changes the wire format, not just a label: a live probe of `/joke/Programming?format=xml&type=single` returned `content-type: application/xml; charset=UTF-8` with a `<data><joke>...</joke></data>` body, re-serializing the same fields JSON returns.
- A filter combination with zero matches 400s with a structured error, it doesn't fall back to a random joke: a live probe of `/joke/Programming?type=single&contains=zzzznonexistentxyz123` returned HTTP 400 with `{"error":true,"internalError":false,"code":106,"message":"No matching joke found",...}`.
- Rate-limit headers are real and live, confirmed on every probe this run: `ratelimit-limit: 120`, a decrementing `ratelimit-remaining`, and `retry-after: 60` (seconds until the window resets) — the field this category's `rateLimit` entry now cites.
- The `api-info` response header self-reports the exact running version — this run's probes all returned `api-info: JokeAPI v2.3.3 (https://v2.jokeapi.dev)` — useful for confirming which server build served a given response.