Signaltiktok · search · users
TikTok user search (search-engine derived). GET /v1/tiktok/search/users accepts your x-api-key header. Costs 2 credits per successful fresh call; failures and opt-in cache hits (cache_max_age) are free. Native path: GET /api/v1/web/tiktok/search/users. Same request parameters and JSON shape as the reference API, so you can switch by changing the base URL.
Request parameters
Built from public search-engine results (DuckDuckGo / Startpage / Brave / Bing, whichever serves a guest) for a site:-restricted query (site:tiktok.com <query> profile URLs). The top N handles are hydrated through the public tiktok/profile page.
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
query | string | Yes | Search query. |
trim | boolean | No | Accepted for compatibility and ignored. |
cursor | string | No | Page cursor (the `cursor` from a previous response). |
hydrate | integer | No | SignalShelf extension: how many top results to hydrate through the matching public guest op (default 3, max 8, 0 = search-engine fields only). Range: 0–8. |
freshness | string | No | 24h (default), 1h, 7d, or live. Accepted cache hits are free; live forces refresh except simultaneous requests may share newly fetched data. |
Code examples
Set SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL and SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY on your server.
curl "$SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL/v1/tiktok/search/users?query=query" \
-H "x-api-key: $SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY"const response = await fetch(process.env.SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL + "/v1/tiktok/search/users?query=query", {
headers: { 'x-api-key': process.env.SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY },
});
const body = await response.json();
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(body.error.message);
console.log(body.data, body.meta);import os, requests
response = requests.get(
os.environ['SIGNALSHELF_BASE_URL'] + "/v1/tiktok/search/users?query=query",
headers={'x-api-key': os.environ['SIGNALSHELF_API_KEY']},
timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
print(response.json())Response and pagination
The response contains data and meta. data includes platform, resource, sample:false, provider, and the public source payload. Lists return data.items; individual resources return data.data.
Author feeds include data.next_cursor. Return it unchanged in cursor for the next page. Feed entries can include reposts. Single-post lookups resolve the handle to a DID first. Deleted or moderated posts may be unavailable.
meta includes event_id, mode, cache, credits_charged, fetched_at, age_seconds, and duration_ms. A fresh successful result costs one credit; accepted cached results and failures cost zero.
Availability and failures
Implementation is not a continuous availability guarantee. Source rate limits, retention, deleted content, restrictions, and regional availability apply. This is an independent SignalShelf contract, not a drop-in competitor response format.
400: invalid parameters. 401: missing/revoked key. 402: insufficient credits. 404: missing public resource. 429: SignalShelf throttle. 502/503: upstream failure or rate limit, with credit restored.