Researching WoW APIs

Expert guidance for discovering and understanding World of Warcraft APIs and patterns.

Related Commands

• c-research - API research workflow

CLI Commands (Use These First)

MANDATORY: Always use CLI commands before manual exploration.

| Task | Command | |------|---------| | Search APIs (Offline) | mech call api.search -i '{"query": "*Spell*"}' | | API Info | mech call api.info -i '{"api_name": "C_Spell.GetSpellInfo"}' | | List by Namespace | mech call api.list -i '{"namespace": "C_Spell"}' | | Search Icons | mech call atlas.search -i '{"query": "sword"}' | | API Stats | mech call api.stats |

Capabilities

1. API Discovery — Search 5000+ WoW APIs offline using static definitions
2. Blizzard UI Research — Find patterns in Blizzard's own Lua source code
3. Ace3 Patterns — Guidance on using common addon libraries (AceDB, AceEvent, etc.)
4. Icon/Atlas Search — Find UI assets and textures by name

Routing Logic

| Request type | Load reference | |--------------|----------------| | Offline API lookup patterns | references/api-research.md | | Blizzard UI source patterns | references/blizzard-ui.md | | Ace3 library patterns | references/ace3-patterns.md | | CLI Reference | ../../docs/cli-reference.md |

Quick Reference

Search WoW APIs

mech call api.search -i '{"query": "GetItem*", "namespace": "C_Item"}'

Get Detailed API Info

mech call api.info -i '{"api_name": "C_Spell.GetSpellInfo"}'

Search Icons

mech call atlas.search -i '{"query": "sword", "limit": 10}'

Best Practices

• Search First: Use api.search before guessing API names.
• Audit Blizzard: Use ripgrep on local wow-ui-source to see how Blizzard uses an API.
• Namespace Awareness: Most modern APIs are in C_ namespaces (e.g., C_Timer, C_Spell).