# No description in a category via API
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473
**Category:** Migration
**Tags:** rest-api
**Created:** [September 1, 2023, 8:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473 "2023-09-01T08:58:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@FLucas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/FLucas)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2023, 8:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473/1 "2023-09-01T08:58:09Z")
Hi,
I’m still importing data from an old app into our new Discourse.
I can’t create a category with its description with the following API call :
```plaintext
curl -X POST "https://site-discourse/categories.json" \
-H "Api-Key: api-key" \
-H "Api-Username: api-username" \
-d "name=categorie test" \
-d "description=Description De La Categorie"
```
The category is created but there is no description.
I get the following response:
```plaintext
{"category":{"id":21,"name":"categorie test",[...],"slug":"categorie-test", [...] **,"description":null** ,"description_text":null,"description_excerpt":null,"topic_url":"/t/a-propos-de-la-categorie-categorie-test/12286", [...]
```
Thanks for your help
---
### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2023, 9:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473/2 "2023-09-01T09:05:52Z")
Hi :blob_wave:
The description of a category is the content of the automatically created “About” topic. The default text is probably considered “null” until it’s edited.
I think there’s no available “description” parameter in the request to create a category, and you need to make another API request to update the first post of the About topic.
Depending on your importing process, you might want to use a proper import script instead of using the API. See #Support > Migration
---
### Author:  [@FLucas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/FLucas)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2023, 4:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473/3 "2023-09-01T16:49:54Z")
Thank you for your reply
I created this script allowing you to create a category and then modify its description:
```bash
curl -X POST "https://site-discourse/categories.json" \
-H "Api-Key: api-key" \
-H "Api-Username: api-username" \
-d "name=Catégorie 1"
sleep 2
latest_posts_response=$(curl -X GET "https://site-discourse/posts.json" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Api-Key: api-key" \
-H "Api-Username: api-username")
post_id=$(echo $latest_posts_response | jq '.latest_posts[0] .id')
curl -X PUT "https://site-discourse/posts/$post_id.json" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Api-Key: api-key" \
-H "Api-Username: api-username" \
-d '{
"post": {
"raw": "Description de la catégorie 1"
}
}'
```
---
### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473/4 "2023-09-01T17:59:50Z")
Did it work in the end?
---
### Author:  [@FLucas](https://meta.discourse.org/u/FLucas)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2023, 4:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/no-description-in-a-category-via-api/277473/5 "2023-09-04T16:00:39Z")
Yes thank you it works !