openapi: 3.0.3 info: title: MusicBrainz Web Service v2 Areas Collections API version: '2.0' description: 'The MusicBrainz Web Service v2 is the free public REST API to the MusicBrainz open music encyclopedia, operated by the MetaBrainz Foundation (a US 501(c)(3) non-profit). The API supports three primary access patterns over twelve core entity types (artist, release, release-group, recording, work, label, place, area, event, instrument, series, url, genre): - **Lookup** — fetch one entity by its MBID with configurable sub-resource includes. - **Browse** — list entities linked to a given parent entity, with pagination. - **Search** — full Lucene query syntax across the indexed catalog. Non-MBID lookups are available for ISRC (recordings), ISWC (works), DiscID (releases), and URL. Responses are returned in MMD-2 XML by default or JSON via the `fmt=json` query parameter. The API enforces a strict rate limit of **one request per IP per second** and requires a meaningful **User-Agent** header on every request (e.g. `MyApp/1.0.0 ( contact@example.com )`). Submission and user-specific endpoints require HTTP Basic or OAuth 2.0 authentication. ' contact: name: MetaBrainz Foundation url: https://metabrainz.org/ email: support@metabrainz.org license: name: API access is free; data licensed CC0 (core) and CC-BY-NC-SA (supplemental) url: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/About/Data_License termsOfService: https://metabrainz.org/social-contract x-generated-from: documentation x-last-validated: '2026-05-29' servers: - url: https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2 description: Production MusicBrainz Web Service v2 - url: https://beta.musicbrainz.org/ws/2 description: Beta MusicBrainz Web Service v2 (pre-release schema changes) tags: - name: Collections description: Authenticated user collections of entities. paths: /collection: get: operationId: listUserCollections summary: List User Collections description: List the collections owned by a MusicBrainz editor. Use `inc=user-collections` while authenticated to also include private collections. tags: - Collections x-microcks-operation: delay: 0 dispatcher: FALLBACK parameters: - name: editor in: query required: true schema: type: string description: MusicBrainz editor (username) whose collections to list. - $ref: '#/components/parameters/Inc' - $ref: '#/components/parameters/Format' responses: '200': description: Collection list '429': $ref: '#/components/responses/TooManyRequests' /collection/{collection_mbid}: get: operationId: lookupCollection summary: Lookup Collection description: Look up a collection by MBID. tags: - Collections x-microcks-operation: delay: 0 dispatcher: FALLBACK parameters: - name: collection_mbid in: path required: true schema: type: string format: uuid - $ref: '#/components/parameters/Format' responses: '200': description: Collection metadata '404': $ref: '#/components/responses/NotFound' '429': $ref: '#/components/responses/TooManyRequests' /collection/{collection_mbid}/{entity_type}: put: operationId: addEntitiesToCollection summary: Add Entities To Collection description: Add up to ~400 entities (semicolon-separated MBIDs) to an existing collection. tags: - Collections security: - HTTPBasic: [] - OAuth2: - collection x-microcks-operation: delay: 0 dispatcher: FALLBACK parameters: - name: collection_mbid in: path required: true schema: type: string format: uuid - name: entity_type in: path required: true schema: type: string enum: - areas - artists - events - labels - places - recordings - release-groups - releases - works - $ref: '#/components/parameters/Client' responses: '200': description: Entities added '401': $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized' '429': $ref: '#/components/responses/TooManyRequests' delete: operationId: removeEntitiesFromCollection summary: Remove Entities From Collection description: Remove entities (semicolon-separated MBIDs) from a collection. tags: - Collections security: - HTTPBasic: [] - OAuth2: - collection x-microcks-operation: delay: 0 dispatcher: FALLBACK parameters: - name: collection_mbid in: path required: true schema: type: string format: uuid - name: entity_type in: path required: true schema: type: string enum: - areas - artists - events - labels - places - recordings - release-groups - releases - works - $ref: '#/components/parameters/Client' responses: '200': description: Entities removed '401': $ref: '#/components/responses/Unauthorized' '429': $ref: '#/components/responses/TooManyRequests' components: parameters: Client: name: client in: query required: true description: Application identifier in the form `name-version` for submission requests. schema: type: string example: my-tagger-1.0.0 Inc: name: inc in: query required: false description: Plus-separated list of sub-resources and relationships to include in the response. schema: type: string example: aliases+tags+ratings+artist-rels Format: name: fmt in: query required: false description: Response serialization format. Defaults to XML; set to `json` for JSON. schema: type: string enum: - xml - json default: xml responses: NotFound: description: Entity not found content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' Unauthorized: description: Authentication required or invalid credentials content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' TooManyRequests: description: Rate limit exceeded - clients must throttle to 1 request per second per IP headers: Retry-After: schema: type: integer description: Seconds to wait before retrying. content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/Error' schemas: Error: type: object properties: error: type: string help: type: string securitySchemes: HTTPBasic: type: http scheme: basic description: HTTP Basic authentication using MusicBrainz editor credentials. Required for submission and user-specific endpoints. OAuth2: type: oauth2 description: OAuth 2.0 authentication via the MusicBrainz OAuth server. flows: authorizationCode: authorizationUrl: https://musicbrainz.org/oauth2/authorize tokenUrl: https://musicbrainz.org/oauth2/token scopes: profile: Access user profile email: Access user email tag: Submit tags rating: Submit ratings collection: Manage collections submit_barcode: Submit release barcodes submit_isrc: Submit recording ISRCs