Help:Create a Wikimedia developer account

This page explains how to create a Wikimedia developer account. If you plan to access, use, or make contributions via protected services, you need a Wikimedia developer account in addition to a Wikimedia global account.

Some of the protected services that require both a Wikimedia developer account and a Wikimedia global account include:

• Cloud VPS Projects
• Toolforge
• Horizon
• Phabricator
• Gerrit
• GitLab

Prior to October 2024, editing this wiki (wikitech.wikimedia.org) also required a developer account. Currently editing this wiki requires a Wikimedia global account.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Create a Wikimedia global account

• Create a Wikimedia global account.

Step 2: Decide which service you need a Wikimedia developer account for

• Toolforge users should follow the quickstart process to create Wikimedia developer accounts.
• VPS and general users should follow the general process described below to create Wikimedia developer accounts.

Toolforge users

Toolforge users should follow the quickstart process to create Wikimedia developer accounts.

Cloud VPS and General Users

Create a Wikimedia developer account

1. Go to the Wikimedia developer account creation page, and fill in the fields.
   • The "username" selected will be used to log in on Wikitech, Gerrit and the Toolforge admin console. Consider that this username will be used in some systems like Gitlab as your displayed name, so you may want this to be your full name. You will not be able to change this username later!
   • The "SSH access (shell) username" will be used to interact with servers via ssh and for git with Gerrit.
2. Create your Wikimedia developer account.

Communication and support

Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation Cloud Services team and Wikimedia movement volunteers. Please reach out with questions and join the conversation:

Discuss and receive general support

• Chat in real time in the IRC channel #wikimedia-cloud ^connect or the bridged Telegram group
• Discuss via email after you have subscribed to the cloud@ mailing list

Stay aware of critical changes and plans

• Subscribe to the cloud-announce@ mailing list (all messages are also mirrored to the cloud@ list)
• Read the News wiki page

Track work tasks and report bugs

Use a subproject of the #Cloud-Services Phabricator project to track confirmed bug reports and feature requests about the Cloud Services infrastructure itself

Read stories and WMCS blog posts

Read the Cloud Services Blog (for the broader Wikimedia movement, see the Wikimedia Technical Blog)