# Possible to use system API key to get "hot" and "latest" topics for specific user?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [26 april 2020 om 13:44 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352 "2020-04-26T13:44:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pnoeric](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pnoeric)
#### Post date: [26 april 2020 om 13:44 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352/1 "2020-04-26T13:44:11Z")
Here’s my use case: I want to show the top 5 latest and hottest topics on my forum home page. I need it to be filtered by what is appropriate for a particular Discourse user - for example, some of my users have access to a private category (which has topics that should bubble up to latest/hottest) and some other users don’t.
Currently when I call the Discourse API to get what I need, I use a system API key. This gives me results that include not only the hidden categories, but also always includes any globally-pinned topics at the top of the list (even though a user may have long unpinned those).
So I think you can see why I need the latest/top for a specific user, not across the entire forum.
And if this functionality is possible by calling with a user API key, then it’s a different problem-- it seems very clumsy to have to create a user API key (programmatically) every time I want to retrieve these results for a user. (And presumably destroy the API key right after, since I don’t need it for anything else.) Is that the only way?
I propose a solution where if you call latest.json or top.json with a system API key, those endpoints could take an optional user ID parameter to limit the results.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [27 april 2020 om 01:49 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352/2 "2020-04-27T01:49:40Z")
If you create an all users api key you can specify the user it runs as. It then impersonates that user.
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### Author:  [@pnoeric](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pnoeric)
#### Post date: [27 april 2020 om 06:55 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352/3 "2020-04-27T06:55:43Z")
Hi @sam oh, fantastic! What’s the endpoint, then? I do have an all-users system API key.
The normal endpoint, that gives me all latest, unfiltered:
`/latest.json`
User-specific endpoints that I’ve tried, that don’t work (where `username` is the name of a user in my forums):
`/username/latest.json`
`/latest/username.json`
`/username/latest`
`/latest/username`
`/latest/4.json` (using user ID instead of username)
etc.
I can’t seem to find it :-\
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### Author:  [@vinothkannans](https://meta.discourse.org/u/vinothkannans)
#### Post date: [27 april 2020 om 07:03 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352/4 "2020-04-27T07:03:31Z")
> **[Discourse API Docs](https://docs.discourse.org/#authentication)**
You should specify the username in `Api-Username` like the example in the above doc.
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### Author:  [@pnoeric](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pnoeric)
#### Post date: [27 april 2020 om 07:06 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/possible-to-use-system-api-key-to-get-hot-and-latest-topics-for-specific-user/149352/5 "2020-04-27T07:06:43Z")
Ahaaaaa thanks. I see now.