Manual:Pywikibot/Installation

This page will help you get started with Pywikibot, either on your own computer, on Toolforge, or using PAWS: A Web Shell.

On PAWS

PAWS: A Web Shell is the easiest way to get started with Pywikibot. No installation is necessary, and you use a web interface to submit commands.

Running Pywikibot on PAWS

On your own computer

Below is a manual to help you set Pywikibot up and running on your own computer. There are four main steps to this process:

• Installing Python
• Installing Pywikibot
• Configuring Pywikibot
• Running a script

On Toolforge

Toolforge provides you with a stable cloud infrastructure on Wikimedia servers that allows you to run bots continuously or on a schedule.

Running Pywikibot on Toolforge

Pywikibot
Quick overview Installation Running on PAWS Running on Windows Running on Toolforge Configuration and scripts user-config.py Global options Generator and filter options i18n Scripts Uses Cookbook Wikidata Non-Wikimedia wikis Development Further help More... »

Install Python

Download and install Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/. Make absolutely certain that you check the box at the bottom of the install wizard asking if you want to add Python to PATH! That will allow you to access Python from any command prompt just by typing the keyword python.

If you already have Python installed, check if your version is recent enough by running python --version in a console. To discover if Python version 3 or above is installed, run python3 --version in a console.

Ubuntu 19.04 and up comes with versions 2 & 3 installed. Python v2 runs by default using terminal command python; to use v3, use terminal command python3.

Python 3.7 or higher is currently required to run the bot, but Python 3.8 or higher is recommended. On Windows please do not forget to modify PATH environment variable to make Python and pip work properly.

Install dependencies

Additional packages are required to run Pywikibot. Run the following command to install these packages:

$ python -m pip install "requests>=2.20.1"
$ python -m pip install "mwparserfromhell>=0.5.2"
$ python -m pip install packaging

For Python 3.7 an additional package is required. Install it with:

$ python -m pip install importlib_metadata

An alternate MediaWiki markup parser may be installed with:

$ python -m pip install "wikitextparser>=0.47.5"

See also https://doc.wikimedia.org/pywikibot/stable/introduction.html#quick-start

Install Pywikibot

$ python -m pip install pywikibot

If using pip, use pwb instead of python pwb.py in examples below.

Download current Pywikibot stable branch: .tar.gz, .zip.

Unpack downloaded file, for example in ~/pywikibot or %USERPROFILE%\pywikibot.

Alternatively, you may retrieve the latest version using git or svn client from Gerrit, see Manual:Pywikibot/Gerrit . This is the recommended way for active bot operators and developers to use Pywikibot.

Other versions are available at https://pywikibot.toolforge.org/.

Updating Pywikibot

Keep your bot framework up to date. New versions are released continuously, and are available at the same location.

If you are using git or svn release, you may skip this note. Otherwise please be aware of a necessity to backup your configuration files and scripts (user-config.py, any family file, or custom script that you might have created or changed, and any current XML dump file you're using for a wiki) before installing a new release.

Unpack the new version over the old version, overwriting all files.

Configure Pywikibot

Open Terminal on Unix-like (Linux/BSD/Solaris) or Command Prompt on Windows (typically under Windows System or Accessories folders in All apps or All programs menu inside the Start menu), and change directory to where you unpacked Pywikibot:

Unix-like (Linux/BSD/Solaris):

$ cd ~/core

Windows:

$ c:
$ cd "%USERPROFILE%\pywikibot"

Substitute the location to where you unpacked Pywikibot.

Continue with the following command to generate user configuration file:

$ python pwb.py generate_user_files

Follow the prompts to configure Pywikibot.

Finally run the following command to log in to your wiki:

$ python pwb.py login

Use on third-party wikis

Pywikibot is pre-configured for a large number of wikis, but possibly not for the one you want to work on. See Manual:Pywikibot/Use on third-party wikis for how to configure Pywikibot for your wiki.

More configuration options

Pywikibot provides a wide range of configuration options to change the behavior of your bot. You can change these settings in the file user-config.py. See config.py for a list of all parameters you can use.

Proxy configuration

Pywikibot relies on requests for communicating with the web. You can use HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables to make requests use a proxy server. Refer to requests' documentation for more info.

Run a script

Pywikibot comes packaged with a large number of scripts in the scripts directory. You can run all of these using:

$ python pwb.py [name of the script]

To learn more about running basic Pywikibot scripts, see:

• Small wiki toolkits workshop about running basic Pywikibot scripts
• Self-study materials based on the small wiki toolkits workshop
• Workshop handbook based on the small wiki toolkits workshop

A list of all scripts is available at Manual:Pywikibot/Scripts and doc.wikimedia.org/pywikibot.

Other dependencies

Most scripts do not require additional packages, but a few of them will not work without. These are listed in requirements.txt together with their dependencies.

To install dependencies for some script, use pip, and run the following command:

$ python -m pip install [name of the package]

Alternatively, run the following command to install all dependencies for all scripts at once:

$ python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

If you need more help on setting up your Pywikibot visit the #pywikibot IRC channel ^connect or pywikibot@ mailing list.