Avoid repeated questions with sessions

Every request to /v2/questions picks questions at random, so over enough requests the same question will come up twice. For a single round that rarely matters. For a game people play every day, or a long-running quiz night, players notice.

A session remembers which questions it has given you, and never gives you the same one again.

Sessions need an API key on a Regular or Complete plan.

Create a session

Make a POST request to /v2/session with your key in the X-API-Key header:

curl -X POST -H "X-API-Key: $TRIVIA_API_KEY" "https://the-trivia-api.com/v2/session"

You get back the session, and its id is what you need:

{
  "id": "3kmTmW29aDTf",
  "totalQuestions": 15590,
  "remainingQuestions": 15590,
  "createdAt": "2026-10-17T09:15:12.117+00:00",
  "updatedAt": "2026-10-17T09:15:12.117+00:00"
}

Create one session for each thing that shouldn't repeat: one per player for a daily quiz, or one per game for a quiz night.

Get questions from the session

Pass the session's id as session when you get questions:

curl -H "X-API-Key: $TRIVIA_API_KEY" \
  "https://the-trivia-api.com/v2/questions?session=3kmTmW29aDTf&limit=10"

Every question you get is marked as used, and later requests with the same session skip it. The usual filters still work, so a session can serve a history round and then a science round without repeating anything.

The one exception is query, which can't be combined with a session.

When a session runs out

Once a session has used every question that matches your filters, requests start returning fewer questions than you asked for, and then an empty array. That's the signal to start a new session (or loosen the filters):

import { createSession, getRandomQuestions } from "@trivia-api/sdk";
 
const options = { apiKey: process.env.TRIVIA_API_KEY };
 
export async function nextRound(sessionId: string) {
  const questions = await getRandomQuestions({ session: sessionId, limit: 10 }, options);
  if (questions.length > 0) {
    return { sessionId, questions };
  }
 
  // Everything matching has been asked: start again with a fresh session
  const session = await createSession(options);
  return {
    sessionId: session.id,
    questions: await getRandomQuestions({ session: session.id, limit: 10 }, options),
  };
}

With broad filters that takes a long time, as there are thousands of questions. With a narrow tag it can happen after a few rounds, so check the count first.

Preview questions without using them up

Sometimes you want to fetch questions without committing to them, e.g. to let a quiz host swap out questions they don't like before the game starts. Add preview=true and the questions aren't marked as used:

curl -H "X-API-Key: $TRIVIA_API_KEY" \
  "https://the-trivia-api.com/v2/questions?session=3kmTmW29aDTf&limit=10&preview=true"

Once you've picked the ones to keep, mark them as used yourself with POST /v2/session/{id}/questions:

import { markQuestionsAsUsed } from "@trivia-api/sdk";
 
await markQuestionsAsUsed(
  { id: sessionId, requestBody: { questionIds: chosen.map((question) => question.id) } },
  options
);

Until you do, a preview can return the same questions again.

Keep the key on your server

Sessions need your API key, and anyone can read a key from code that runs in their browser. Create sessions and fetch their questions from your server (or a serverless function), then send the questions on to the browser. Store each session's id wherever you keep the player's or game's other state.

The API reference covers every session endpoint.