# Crawling Discourse Meta
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [May 1, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120 "2020-05-01T21:41:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@m\_imran\_123](https://meta.discourse.org/u/m_imran_123)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120/1 "2020-05-01T21:41:48Z")
Hi there,
I’m new to the platform and I was wondering if we are allowed to crawl the Discourse Meta Forum? Or do we need an API key? If so, how could I obtain an API key? I’m interesting in potentially contributing to the project.
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### Author:  [@maiki](https://meta.discourse.org/u/maiki)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120/2 "2020-05-01T21:43:02Z")
> [@m\_imran\_123](#):
>
> I’m new to the platform and I was wondering if we are allowed to crawl the Discourse Meta Forum?
For what reason?
❓
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### Author:  [@awesomerobot](https://meta.discourse.org/u/awesomerobot)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120/3 "2020-05-01T21:49:39Z")
If you’re looking to contribute we have a guide here: [Contributing to Discourse development](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-development-contribution-guidelines/3823)
Regardless of the reason, you will not be able to obtain an API key for Meta. You’ll need to set up your own site (in development locally or in production on your own server) and get an API key to your own site that way.
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### Author:  [@kneiser](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kneiser)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2020, 7:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/crawling-discourse-meta/150120/4 "2020-05-02T07:42:29Z")
Obviously, they’re a spider 🕷
_crawlers 'gon crawl_