Profiles, follow, and unfollow

Use the profile operations to read a user's public profile or change whether the authenticated user follows that profile. A profile contains username, nullable bio, nullable image, and a boolean following value.

Replace ada in the examples with the username you want to address. Profile reads do not declare required security and can be made without a token; follow and unfollow require the Authorization: Token <jwt> header. See Authentication and token usage and Authentication and ownership permissions.

Get a profile

GET /profiles/{username} returns the profile envelope. Authentication is optional, so following can reflect the requesting user when a valid token is supplied.

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles/

{ "profile": { "username": "ada", "bio": null, "image": null, "following": false } }

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles/ada

If you want the response's following value to represent your authenticated relationship, add your token:

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles/ada \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <jwt>'

Follow a user

POST /profiles/{username}/follow follows the named user for the authenticated user and returns the resulting profile.

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles//follow

{ "profile": { "username": "ada", "bio": null, "image": null, "following": true } }

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles/ada/follow \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <jwt>'

Unfollow a user

DELETE /profiles/{username}/follow removes the authenticated user's following relationship and returns the resulting profile.

curl --request DELETE \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles//follow

{ "profile": { "username": "ada", "bio": null, "image": null, "following": false } }

curl --request DELETE \
  --url https://api.realworld.show/api/profiles/ada/follow \
  --header 'Authorization: Token <jwt>'

Use the returned profile.following value to confirm the state change. The API contract does not document a separate response for repeating a follow or unfollow, so handle the returned profile and documented errors rather than assuming an idempotency status.

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