Is there a way to assign via API? I don’t see it in the docs, but I would love to be surprised :slight_smile: Edit: looks like I’ll be trying to reverse engineer it!

The Discourse Assign exposes these API endpoints: Assign (PUT /assign/assign.json) Required parameters: target_id - The topic or post ID target_type - Either "Topic" or "Post" Plus one of: username - Username to assign to group_name - Group name to assign to Optional parameters: note - Assignment note status - Assignment status should_notify - Send notifications (default: true) Unassign (PUT /assign/unassign.json) Required parameters: target_id - The topic or post ID target_type - Either "Topic" or "Post" Examples (curl) # Assign topic 123 to user "john" curl -X PUT "https://your-discourse.com/assign/assign.json" \ -H "Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Api-Username: YOUR_USERNAME" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"target_id": 123, "target_type": "Topic", "username": "john"}' # Assign to a group instead curl -X PUT "https://your-discourse.com/assign/assign.json" \ -H "Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \ -H "Api-Username: YOUR_USERNAME" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"target_id": 123, "target_type": "Topic", "group_name": "support-team"}' Notes The API user must have assign permissions (be in an assign-allowed group) You can also assign individual posts using target_type: “Post” with the post ID @opcourdis the Node.js example above looks correct! :+1:

First of all, our goal is to have a stable API, it is a multi year effort to get there, but it is certainly a place we want to get. In the meant time a reasonable 2025 trick you can use is lean on AI agents to figure this stuff out: This shows how you can lean on our GitHub helper to answer the question! Discourse Assign Plugin API Documentation sam: looking at discourse/discourse source code search discourse assign plugin and figure out the exact endpoints and payloads I should use to assign and unassign a topic, document with a curl example and example reply GitHub_Helper_bot: I’ll help you find the exact endpoints and payloads for the Discourse assign plugin. Let me search for the relevant files in the discourse/discourse repository. Now let me get the actual assign controller file to see the exact endpoints: Perfect! I found the assign plugin controller. Now let me examine the specific code to document the endpoints and payloads. Let me also check for more i… Read full transcript

Hey! Not yet! This project got bumped back for something more pressing, but I’ll be back on it next week :slight_smile:

@tobiaseigen this works for me using node js var https = require(‘https’); // Configuration var CONFIG = { apiUrl: ‘YOURDISCOURSEDOMAIN’, apiKey: ‘YOURAPIKEY’, apiUsername: ‘YOURAPIUSER’, assignToUsername: ‘USERNAMETOASSIGNTO’ // Username to assign topics to }; // Topic IDs to assign var topicIds = [634]; //change with the topic id function assignTopic(topicId, callback) { var postData = JSON.stringify({ target_id: topicId, target_type: ‘Topic’, username: CONFIG.assignToUsername }); var options = { hostname: CONFIG.apiUrl, port: 443, path: ‘/assign/assign.json’, method: ‘PUT’, rejectUnauthorized: false, headers: { ‘Api-Key’: CONFIG.apiKey, ‘Api-Username’: CONFIG.apiUsername, ‘Content-Type’: ‘application/json’, ‘Content-Length’: postData.length } }; var req = https.request(options, function(res) { var data = ‘’; res.on('data', function(chunk) { data += chunk; }); res.on('end', function() { console.log('Status:', res.statusCode); console.log('Raw response:', data); try { var response = JSON.parse(data); if (res.statusCode === 200) { console.log('Topic ' + topicId + ' successfully assigned'); } else { console.log('Topic ' + topicId + ' error:', response.errors || response.error_type || response); } } catch (e) { console.log('Parse error:', e.message); } if (callback) callback(); }); }); req.on(‘error’, function(e) { console.error('Request error for topic ’ + topicId + ‘:’, e); if (callback) callback(); }); req.write(postData); req.end(); } // Run sequentially var index = 0; function next() { if (index < topicIds.length) { assignTopic(topicIds[index], function() { index++; setTimeout(next, 500); }); } } console.log(‘Assigning topics:’, topicIds.join(‘, ‘)); console.log(‘Assign to:’, CONFIG.assignToUsername); console.log(’’); next();

Thanks for sharing nice to so see we can include all those parameters

How do I assign a topic via the API

Product Support

tobiaseigen (Tobias Eigen) November 20, 2025, 8:52pm 3

Did you figure this out? If so, can you share your learning here?

Topic		Replies	Views
Discourse Assign Plugin official , assign , included-in-core	34	41952	August 23, 2026
Assigning topic under a group Feature	1	694	April 14, 2017
Create topic with Discourse API Development	0	473	November 1, 2022
How to assign topic to a moderator using curl or python script(not from web UI) Product Support assign	2	240	October 6, 2025
Discourse REST API comprehensive examples Integrations rest-api , how-to	21	6700	October 13, 2024

How do I assign a topic via the API

Related topics