BGG XML APIcalypse Now

2025-10-31T00:00:00-04:00

I applied for non-commercial access to BoardGameGeek’s XML APIs (there are two) earlier this year, at some point well after the announcement of the coming of the APIcalypse. I was also less than prompt in updating my BGG tools to authenticate against the soon-to-be-secured API. This week the APIcalypse arrived and I finally updated my tools to get them working in the post-apocalyptic hellscape era.

I was thinking that, due to the interesting implementation of the new API authentication, I’d have to send my sekrit in the clear from my purely client-side BGG apps. But then I remembered that all my API requests are going through my personal CORS proxy, in order to deal with some other interesting design choice at BGG (the gory details of which I’ve since forgotten). So I could just hack my proxy to also authenticate my requests without revealing any secrets. The hardest part was getting PHP working locally on my Mac in order to test my changes.