DiscourseIntegration (BETA)

Note

This extension is unmaintained as of the 23rd of June, 2026. Consider using an alternative instead, such as utdrwiki/discussions.

Some parts of the implementation were inspired by the utdrwiki/discussion extension.

This extension is in BETA. It has been tested on MediaWiki 1.46 and Discourse Latest. Best results on Citizen, Vector22 tested and working.

Replaces the Discussion/Talk Page button with a link to your Discourse forum and adds up to 3 related posts from your Discourse forum to the bottom of the page like the RelatedArticles extension. Currently only available in English. This extension does not act as a bridge between MediaWiki SSO and Discourse SSO. Depending on your Discourse instance's configuration, you may be able to use dummy variables for the API key and username.

Requirements

• MediaWiki 1.43.0+ (1.46 verified)
• Discourse Latest

Suggestions

• Citizen skin (recommended)
• RelatedArticles extension (recommended) (extension not tested without RelatedArticles, use for best stability)

Installation

1. Have a working Discourse instance set up with admin access
2. Download and place the extension in your mediawiki/extensions directory
3. Run sudo chmod -R 755 extensions/DiscourseIntegration if necessary
4. Add wfLoadExtension( 'DiscourseIntegration' ); to your LocalSettings.php
5. Add the required configuration options to your LocalSettings.php, see Config Reference below

Config Reference

• $wgDiscourseReplaceTalkPages REQUIRED - default TRUE - Whether to replace Talk Page links with links to Discourse search (e.g., https://discourse.example.com/search?q=Page+Title)
• $wgDiscourseBaseURL REQUIRED - default "https://discourse.example.com" - Base URL of the Discourse instance. Do not include trailing slash.
• $wgDiscourseAPIKey REQUIRED - default "" - API key for the Discourse instance. Must be global with read/write permissions.
• $wgDiscourseAPIUsername REQUIRED - default "system" - Username used to process all API requests.
• $wgDiscourseTargetNamespaces BEST PRACTICE - default [0] - Namespaces to replace talk page buttons with Discourse threads and show related posts.
• $wgDiscourseTargetSkins BEST PRACTICE - default ["citizen","vector","vector-2022"] - Skins (in lowercase) to replace talk page buttons with Discourse threads and show related posts.
• $wgDiscourseExcludeStrings - default [] - List of strings. If a page title contains any of these, the talk page link will NOT be replaced.
• $wgDiscourseExcludePages - default ["Main_Page", "Home", "Main", "Mainpage"] - List of page titles. If a page title matches any of these, the talk page link will NOT be replaced and related posts will not be shown.
• $wgDiscourseSquarePFPsForAll - default FALSE - Use square profile pictures instead of rounded.
• $wgDiscourseSquarePFPsForUsersWithTitles - default [] - Use square profile pictures instead of rounded for users with certain titles.
• $wgDiscourseUseNoFollowOnForumLinks - default FALSE - Add nofollow to all links to the forum. Not recommended for SEO.
• $wgDiscourseOpenForumLinksInNewTab - default TRUE - Open all links to the forum in a new tab using _blank, otherwise uses the default behavior of the browser.
• $wgDiscourseCacheTTL - default 3600 - How long (in seconds) to cache Discourse API responses. Failed API calls are cached for 5 minutes to avoid hammering Discourse.
• $wgDiscourseTopicSortOrder - default "" - Sort order for related topics. When empty, searches by relevance. Accepts values like "latest", "likes", "views".
• $wgDiscourseMaxRelatedPosts - default 3 - Maximum number of related posts to display.
• $wgDiscourseSiteName - default "Discourse" - Name of the forum to display on hover over related posts.
• $wgDiscourseShowRelatedPosts - default TRUE - Whether to show related posts at the bottom of the page.
• $wgDiscourseRootForumURLForNonMain - default FALSE - If true, non-main namespaces will link to the base forum URL instead of searching for the page title. If false, they will use the default talk pages.

Changelog

0.2.2

• Image headers: Added support for images in posts
• Tidy up configuration: Simplified configuration options by removing $wgDiscourseTalkNamespaces, $wgDiscoursePostsNamespaces, $wgDiscourseTalkSkins, and $wgDiscoursePostsSkins and replacing them with $wgDiscourseRootForumURLForNonMain.
• Fix: Fixed an issue where the talk page link was not replaced in non-target namespaces even with configurations.
• Fixed styles: Certain styles were not applied correctly. Also simplified styles into the dedicated css resource file. Also aligns and matches with the Related Articles extension better.

0.2.1

• Configuration separation: Added separate controls for talk page replacement and related posts via $wgDiscourseTalkNamespaces, $wgDiscoursePostsNamespaces, etc.
• Skin enhancement: The Discourse logo now replaces the talk icon on the Citizen skin for a more integrated feel.
• New Toggle: Added $wgDiscourseShowRelatedPosts to explicitly enable/disable the related posts section independent of other features.

0.2.0

• Caching improvements: Configurable cache TTL via $wgDiscourseCacheTTL, negative caching (failed API responses are cached for 5 minutes), and HTTP request timeouts
• Bug fix: DiscourseExcludePages was missing from CONSTRUCTOR_OPTIONS and could cause assertion failures
• Proper hook handler DI: RelatedPosts is now registered as a HookHandler via extension.json with dependency injection instead of using a static bridge method
• CSS refinement: All inline styles moved to resources/styles.css — styles are now skin-overridable and browser-cacheable
• Styles module loading: The ext.DiscourseIntegration.styles module is now actually loaded (was previously defined but never added to the page output)
• Error logging: API failures are now logged via MediaWiki's logging framework (DiscourseIntegration channel)

TODO

• Potentially delay paint until user scrolls to the bottom like RelatedArticles
• Ability to customize cache TTL by category and page size
• Support for solved posts