# Using discourse purely for Q&A functionality without UI or Authentication

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-purely-for-q-a-functionality-without-ui-or-authentication/260683>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Created:** [April 5, 2023, 5:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-purely-for-q-a-functionality-without-ui-or-authentication/260683 "2023-04-05T17:07:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![pfaffman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pfaffman/32/120154_2.png) [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2023, 5:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/using-discourse-purely-for-q-a-functionality-without-ui-or-authentication/260683/2 "2023-04-05T17:34:23Z")

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You’d set it up normally.

I guess you’d then get an API key to give your front end, maybe.

> [@x473](#):
>
> Furthermore, we would assume that user’s are already signed-in prior to being able to access a topic.

So you’d create those users in Discourse and maybe use [Discourse Connect](https://meta.discourse.org/t/13045?silent=true) to log people in from your front end. Or maybe you’d have your code do authentication and use a global API key to retrieve the data from Discourse.

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