Nytimes Top Stories

Name: Top Stories API
Brand: Top Stories API
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecMediaContent DeliveryapiKey1 EndpointsREST

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the Top Stories to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Top Stories, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Top Stories API.

Retrieve the curated article lineup for any NYT section front

Pull the NYT homepage lineup via the home section value

Filter to vertical-specific section fronts such as Technology or Opinion

Surface multiple-sized image media for each article

GET STARTED

Start building with Top Stories API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

For Agents

Get the editor-curated NYT articles from any section front, including home, world, business, technology, opinion, and arts.

Use for: Get the current NYT homepage articles, Find the top NYT Politics stories right now, Retrieve the curated NYT Technology section front, List the top NYT Opinion pieces today

Not supported: Does not provide full article body text, chronological publication ordering, or engagement metrics - use for editor-curated NYT section-front lineups only.

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Top Stories API for, with concrete tasks.

★ NYT Section Front Mirror

Mirror the NYT homepage or any vertical section front in a third-party app. The /{section}.{format} endpoint returns the editor-curated article ordering with title, byline, abstract, kicker, multimedia, and the canonical URL. A typical implementation calls the home section every 5 minutes and renders the response as a card grid.

Call /home.json and render the first 12 articles as a homepage card grid with title, kicker, abstract, and the largest media URL.

Vertical-Focused Reader Feed

Power a reader app that focuses on a single NYT vertical (e.g. Technology, Arts, Opinion). The Top Stories API returns the editor-curated section front with the same hierarchy NYT readers see on NYTimes.com, so the app preserves editorial priority rather than reverse-chronological order.

Call /technology.json and return the top 10 articles with byline, abstract, and the medium-sized media URL.

Editorial Briefing Generator

Generate a daily editorial briefing summarising the NYT-curated top stories across multiple sections. An agent calls the Top Stories endpoint for each chosen section, extracts titles and abstracts, and feeds them into a summarisation prompt for a morning briefing email or Slack post.

Loop sections ['home','politics','business','technology'] calling /{section}.json for each, then summarise the top 3 articles per section.

Agent-Driven Top Stories Lookup via Jentic

An AI news assistant uses Jentic to fetch the NYT-curated top stories on demand when a user asks 'what's on the NYT homepage?'. Jentic returns the /{section}.{format} operation, the agent loads the schema and executes the call without manually wiring the section path.

Search Jentic for 'get NYT top stories', load the /{section}.{format} operation, and execute it with section='home' and format='json'.

Key Endpoints

1 endpoints — the new york times top stories api returns the editor-curated lineup of articles from any nyt section front.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

GET

/{section}.{format}

Get the curated top stories for a NYT section front

GET

/{section}.{format}

Get the curated top stories for a NYT section front

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Your NYT api-key is stored once, encrypted, by your own Jentic One instance and injected into the api-key query parameter at execution time. It never enters the agent's prompt, logs, or context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent such as 'get the NYT top stories' or 'fetch a NYT section front', and Jentic returns the /{section}.{format} operation with its input schema so the agent calls the right path without reading the NYT documentation.

Time to first call

FAQs

Specific to using Top Stories API through Jentic.

What authentication does the NYT Top Stories API use?

Authentication is an API key passed as the api-key query parameter on /{section}.{format}. Provision a key at developer.nytimes.com. Through Jentic the credential lives in the vault and is injected at execution time, so the agent never sees the raw key.

Which NYT sections does the API support?

The section path segment accepts arts, automobiles, books, business, fashion, food, health, home, insider, magazine, movies, nyregion, obituaries, opinion, politics, realestate, science, sports, sundayreview, technology, theater, t-magazine, travel, upshot, us, and world.

What are the rate limits for the NYT Top Stories API?

NYT enforces 500 requests per day and 5 requests per minute per API key, shared across all NYT developer APIs. The section fronts change every few minutes at most, so cache responses for 2-5 minutes to comfortably stay within budget.

How do I get the NYT homepage articles through Jentic?

Search Jentic for 'get NYT top stories', load the /{section}.{format} operation, and execute it with section='home' and format='json'. The response returns the editor-curated homepage lineup with multimedia and canonical URLs.

Is the NYT Top Stories API free to use?

Yes. NYT offers Top Stories at no cost on the developer portal for non-commercial use within the published rate limits. Commercial redistribution of the curated lineup requires a separate licensing agreement with the NYT licensing team.

How does Top Stories differ from the Times Newswire API?

Top Stories returns the editor-curated section front with hand-ordered articles. Times Newswire returns articles in reverse chronological publication order across all sources including AP. Use Top Stories to mirror NYT's editorial priorities and Times Newswire for chronological publish-stream monitoring.

Can I limit what my agent is allowed to do with the NYT Top Stories API?

Yes. The NYT Top Stories API exposes a single read-only lookup, the /{section}.{format} section-front call, so with your self-hosted Jentic One instance you decide whether your agent may reach even that one operation. Because you set the rules on your own instance, the agent runs only the section-lineup call you approve and nothing else, and your NYT api-key stays under your control rather than the agent's. No other behaviour runs unless you add it.