wikidata

name	wikidata
description	Use wd-cli for Wikidata lookup and querying tasks, including name resolution, entity profiling, statement inspection, hierarchy traversal, and SPARQL execution.

wikidata

When to use this skill

Use this skill when a user asks to retrieve or inspect Wikidata information from the terminal, especially when they ask for:

• disambiguating an entity name into likely QIDs
• concise entity profile summaries (company/person/place)
• item/property lookups by label
• direct statements for an entity
• values for a specific property on an entity
• instance of / subclass of hierarchy traversal
• ad-hoc SPARQL queries against Wikidata Query Service

Tool overview

wd-cli is a CLI for querying Wikidata and related services.

Install globally:

npm i -g @osolmaz/wd-cli

Or run without installing:

npx -y @osolmaz/wd-cli --help

Command map

wd-cli search-items <query>
wd-cli search-properties <query>
wd-cli resolve <query>
wd-cli profile <entity-id>
wd-cli get-statements <entity-id>
wd-cli get-statement-values <entity-id> <property-id>
wd-cli get-instance-and-subclass-hierarchy <entity-id>
wd-cli execute-sparql [query]

Useful aliases:

• search-items -> si
• search-properties -> sp
• get-statements -> statements
• get-statement-values -> statement-values, values
• get-instance-and-subclass-hierarchy -> hierarchy
• execute-sparql -> sparql

High-signal usage patterns

Resolve then profile (recommended default flow):

wd-cli resolve "Marie Curie" --limit 5
wd-cli profile Q7186 --type person

Search entities:

wd-cli search-items "Douglas Adams"
wd-cli search-properties "occupation"

Inspect entity facts:

wd-cli get-statements Q42
wd-cli get-statement-values Q42 P106
wd-cli hierarchy Q42 --max-depth 2
wd-cli profile Q42 --type person

Run SPARQL:

wd-cli execute-sparql 'SELECT ?human WHERE { ?human wdt:P31 wd:Q5 } LIMIT 2'
wd-cli execute-sparql --file ./query.sparql

Machine-readable output:

wd-cli --json search-items "Douglas Adams"
wd-cli --json resolve "Marie Curie"
wd-cli --json profile Q7186 --type person
wd-cli --json sparql --query 'SELECT ?item WHERE { ?item wdt:P31 wd:Q5 } LIMIT 2'

Operational guidance

• Default output is text; use --json for automation.
• Prefer QIDs/PIDs when known (Q42, P31) to avoid ambiguity.
• For ambiguous names, use resolve first, then run downstream commands on selected QID.
• Use profile --type company|person|place for concise summaries before deep dives.
• Use --no-vector on search commands when you need strict keyword search behavior.
• Use --timeout for slow networks/services.
• For SPARQL, provide only one query source at a time: positional arg, --query, or --file.

Relevant global flags

• --json
• --timeout <duration>
• --user-agent <userAgent>
• --wikidata-api-url <url>
• --wikidata-query-url <url>
• --textifier-url <url>
• --vector-search-url <url>
• --vector-api-secret <secret>

Environment variables

• WD_API_URI
• WD_QUERY_URI
• TEXTIFER_URI / TEXTIFIER_URI
• VECTOR_SEARCH_URI
• WD_VECTORDB_API_SECRET
• USER_AGENT
• REQUEST_TIMEOUT_SECONDS