Chuck Norris Database API

Beginner's Pick Games & Comics / No Auth Required Beginner HTTP
Free to Use
77 B
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 14/30 Consistency 20/20 Security 20/20 Browser access 15/15 Transparency 8/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

The Chuck Norris Database API (ICNDB) delivers random Chuck Norris jokes as JSON with zero setup — no API key needed, just a simple GET request. You can filter by category, request a specific joke by ID, or replace the default name with a custom one using query parameters. It's one of the easiest APIs to start with for learning HTTP requests and JSON parsing.

Beginner Tip

Use the 'firstName' and 'lastName' query parameters to personalize jokes with any name, making it fun for building custom greeting bots.

Measurement Record

What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.

Request
GET https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/random?category=science
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 474 bytes · compressed
Response time
276 ms (median of 3) · fastest 272 ms
Transport
TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Google Trust Services
Browser CORS
Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Served by
cloudflare
Recorded
2026-08-10

Fields Returned

Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.

Field Type Value received
categories array [1 item]
created_at string (date) 2020-01-05 13:42:19.576875
icon_url string (url) https://api.chucknorris.io/img/avatar/chuck-n…
id string ymizqu9lrcenixhy-nazka
updated_at string (date) 2020-01-05 13:42:19.576875
url string (url) https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/ymizqu9lrcen…
value string When J. Robert Oppenheimer said "I am become …

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/random?category=science on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "categories": [
    "science"
  ],
  "created_at": "2020-01-05 13:42:19.576875",
  "icon_url": "https://api.chucknorris.io/img/avatar/chuck-norris.png",
  "id": "ymizqu9lrcenixhy-nazka",
  "updated_at": "2020-01-05 13:42:19.576875",
  "url": "https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/ymizqu9lrcenixhy-nazka",
  "value": "When J. Robert Oppenheimer said \"I am become death, the destroyer Of worlds\", He was not referring to the atomic bomb. He was referring to the Chuck Norris h…"
}

Field Reference

id Unique identifier for the joke, usable in the /jokes/{id} endpoint.
value The joke text itself.
categories List of category tags for the joke (e.g. 'science', 'sport'); empty array means uncategorized.
url Direct permalink URL to this specific joke on the Chuck Norris IO website.

Implementation Example

Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.

Request
const url = "http://www.icndb.com/api/";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data);

What Can You Build?

Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.

How This API Fails

We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist application/json
{
  "timestamp": "2026-08-10T19:56:20.455Z",
  "status": 404,
  "error": "Not Found",
  "path": "/jokes/random/apisscore-nonexistent-path"
}
HTTP 404 Sending an invalid value for "category" application/json
{
  "timestamp": "2026-08-10T19:56:20.743Z",
  "status": 404,
  "error": "Not Found",
  "path": "/jokes/random"
}

Common Errors & Troubleshooting

Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.

404 on /jokes/random with invalid category The category name doesn't exist in the database.
First call https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/categories to get the valid list of category names.
Empty value field in response An extremely rare database issue or network problem.
Simply retry the request; the API is stateless and each call fetches a fresh random joke.
Receiving HTML instead of JSON The endpoint URL is incorrect and returning an error page.
Use the correct base URL https://api.chucknorris.io/jokes/random (not the icndb.com legacy URL).

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 14/30
Consistency 20/20
Security 20/20
Browser access 15/15
Transparency 8/15
Endpoint Response Time 276ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS NO
CORS UNKNOWN
Category Games & Comics
Difficulty Beginner
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

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