Bored API

The Bored API is a free, open-source, no-authentication public API that serves suggestions for things to do when you are bored. The canonical reference implementation is an MEVN (MongoDB / Express / Vue / Node) project maintained by Drew Thoennes at github.com/drewthoennes/Bored-API (MIT licensed). The historically hosted instance at https://www.boredapi.com/ has been intermittently or fully unreachable since June 2024 (originally hosted on Heroku); a community fork maintained by The App Brewery at https://bored-api.appbrewery.com remains actively available for students and consumers. This profile documents the v1 surface (legacy activities-only), the v2 surface (activities + facts + riddles + websites + suggestions), and the App Brewery community mirror, so the API contract is preserved as a historical, self-hostable artifact.

2 APIs 5 Features

ActivitiesBoredomCommunityDevelopmentDiscoveryEducationFactsFreeMEVNNo AuthOpen SourcePublic APIsRecreationRiddlesSuggestionsWebsites

APIs

Bored API (Canonical)

Canonical Drew Thoennes Bored API surface, covering v1 (legacy activities) and v2 (activities + facts + riddles + websites + suggestions). No authentication. The hosted instance...

Bored API (App Brewery Community Fork)

Community-hosted mirror of the Bored API maintained by The App Brewery for their web development course. Provides a flattened path scheme (/random, /filter, /activity/{key}) on ...

Collections

Bored API

OPEN

Bored API (App Brewery Fork)

OPEN

Features

Free and open

No API key, no auth, no signup required.

Multi-dimensional filtering

Activities can be filtered by type, participants, price, and accessibility — including min/max ranges.

Versioned surface

V1 (legacy) and v2 (extended with facts, riddles, websites, suggestions) coexist.

Self-hostable

MIT-licensed MEVN stack — clone, npm install, run against a local MongoDB.

Community-extensible

V2 suggestions endpoint accepts new activity, fact, riddle, and website submissions for moderator review.

Use Cases

Boredom busters

I'm Bored Alexa skill, Discord bots, browser extensions for spontaneous activity ideas.

Teaching API

Sample API used in many web-development bootcamps (notably The App Brewery course) for fetch/axios/HTTP exercises.

Mobile apps

iOS and Android apps that surface random activities to users.

Decision support

Helper tools that recommend low-cost, low-participant activities when users can't decide what to do.

Integrations

Amazon Alexa

I'm Bored Alexa skill consuming the Bored API for spoken suggestions.

Python (PyPI)

bored and bored-api Python wrappers on PyPI.

Kotlin

CMDR_Tvis Kotlin wrapper on GitLab.

iOS App Store

Bored — Find What to Do iOS app.

The App Brewery

Used as the canonical fetch/axios teaching API in The App Brewery's web-development course.

Semantic Vocabularies

Bored Context

0 classes · 5 properties

JSON-LD

API Governance Rules

Bored API API Rules

12 rules · 8 errors 4 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Structure

Bored Activity V1 Structure

7 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Bored Activity V2 Structure

9 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Bored Fact Structure

3 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Bored Riddle Structure

5 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Bored Website Structure

3 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Example Payloads

Bored Api Get Activity By Key V2 Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Activity V1 Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Activity V1 Filtered Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Activity V2 Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Fact Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Riddle Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Get Random Website Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Api Submit Suggestion Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Appbrewery Filter Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Bored Appbrewery Get Random Example

2 fields

EXAMPLE

Resources

Documentation

PublicAPIsListing

PublicAPIsListing

Sources

opencollection: 1.0.0
info:
  name: Bored API (App Brewery Fork)
  version: 1.0.0
items:
- info:
    name: Activities
    type: folder
  items:
  - info:
      name: Get a Random Activity
      type: http
    http:
      method: GET
      url: https://bored-api.appbrewery.com/random
    docs: Returns a single random activity. No query parameters supported.
  - info:
      name: Filter Activities
      type: http
    http:
      method: GET
      url: https://bored-api.appbrewery.com/filter
      params:
      - name: type
        value: ''
        type: query
        description: Filter by activity category.
      - name: participants
        value: ''
        type: query
        description: Filter by exact number of participants.
    docs: Returns the list of activities matching the supplied filters. Both type and participants may be supplied independently
      or together.
  - info:
      name: Get an Activity by Key
      type: http
    http:
      method: GET
      url: https://bored-api.appbrewery.com/activity/:key
      params:
      - name: key
        value: ''
        type: path
        description: Unique key identifying the activity.
    docs: Return the activity matching the supplied unique key.
bundled: true