Watchtower News API

A searchable news archive built from 75 plus curated sources. Updated hourly. Articles are retained for 90 days.

Quickstart

Every request needs an API key. Get yours from your Watchtower account settings. Pass it as a bearer token or with the X-API-Key header.

curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news?q=acquisition&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wt_live_YOUR_KEY"

Search and filter

# Full text search, sorted by relevance
curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news?q=nvidia+earnings&sort=relevance:desc" \
  -H "X-API-Key: wt_live_YOUR_KEY"

# Filter by source, category, and date range
curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news?source=TechCrunch&category=technology&from=2026-06-01T00:00:00Z" \
  -H "X-API-Key: wt_live_YOUR_KEY"

# Collapse articles covering the same story to one result
curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news?q=openai&dedupe=true" \
  -H "X-API-Key: wt_live_YOUR_KEY"

Discover sources and categories

curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news/meta/sources" -H "X-API-Key: wt_live_YOUR_KEY"
curl "https://api.gotwatchtower.com/v1/news/meta/categories" -H "X-API-Key: wt_live_YOUR_KEY"

Rate limits

Default limit is 120 requests per minute per key. When you exceed it the API returns 429 with a Retry-After header. Every response includes X-RateLimit-Limit.

Keep your key secret. If a key leaks, rotate it from your account settings. Rotation invalidates the old key immediately and shows the new key exactly once.