Steamgifts API

I know there's already an old thread here requesting API for SG, but it's 6 years old so I decided to make a new one. I'll try to cover the points from the old thread and any new ones I can think of.

I believe SG needs to offer an API. There are several tools, extensions & userscripts that scrape the website for the desired information, which is "bad" for both the tools and SG. An official API would benefit both. I'll try covering all the points I can think of.

What should the API offer:

• Tokenized API for registered members only. Will also make it easier to make sure that only the info that the user should have access to is provided by the API. Also, can be used to limit the number of API hits by the user.
• List all GAs, completed, ongoing and not-started GAs, all of them (but only those that the user have access to, that means anything but invite only GAs I believe, (users can see WL-only GAs too, just only access it's page/enter them)). The list should include these: GA Code/ID(the 5 letter GA code), Steam Link/ID, Game Name (optional), Start Time, End Time, Creator Username/Steam ID, GA Visibility (Groups / WL / Public, Level & Region restrictions), number of copies. Many of these could be omitted in the list and instead be provided in the below request. Filtering by start/end date, number of copies, game/steam ID, user's wishlist, group, etc should be supported, same as how search and the GA list on other "special" pages work. This is implemented to some extend, but a lot can be imporved. See more here.
• Fetching info about a particular GA by it's GA Code. This should include all of the above, along with all the entries (username + timestamp of the entry), Winner(s) Usernames/SteamIDs after they have provided feedback with the feedback they provided. It's could also provide number of comments, just the total number of comments.
• List of groups the user is a part of (same as https://www.steamgifts.com/account/steam/groups), with the group ID and the name. Filters could be provided as well (group name, number of users, etc).
• Retrieving group info by it's ID. All the publicly visible information about the groups, like name, steam link, First GA, Last GA, num of GAs, list of GAs, list of users, group wishlist, etc. I don't think there's anything here that might need to be omitted.
• User info by steam ID and SG username. The user info should include all the basic stats that is visible on the user page (role, last online, registered, num of comments, etc), list of created and won GAs code (just the GA codes is enough, as we can already fetch info about GAs from the 3nd point). Also, this should include the current status of the user (active, account suspended, permanently banned, etc).

What should the API NOT offer:

• The API data should be read-only. That means it should NOT be possible to enter GAs, create GAs, make comments, or make any kind of changes.
• I am a bit unsure about this, but I think the GA descriptions and GA comment contents should not be accessible by API.
• Access the won GAs' keys/gift links. Even though the user is authenticated via the API token, still access to even revealed keys should NOT be available imo.
• Access to tickets/support system of any kind. I believe they don't require API. Though, even if there were an API for it, I can't think of an use for it.
• Access to discussions of any kind. They are like forum, and hence don't require API imo, and they can be too much data. Also, discussion usually contain links to all the invite only GAs, or puzzles and stuff. So, not providing access to it might be better (even though the bots can still crawl the website and get all the info from there directly. They don't even need to log in for accessing the discussions).

How it will benefit everyone (or at least tools developers and tools users):

• The tools developers will no longer have to scrape the website. Tools like SGTools and ESGST are very common, and cause a lot of load on the website. And API could make the tools development easier.
• This is reduce web scraping to a great degree (it won't eliminate it completely, specially due to bot accounts). Web scraping puts a lot more load on the server than APIs (even if just the static HTML is used for scrapping, without the images and external references).
• Users of multiple tools like ESGST, "do you even play bro", etc, could unknowing exhibiting DOS attack like behavior from the server's perspective. Though most users should not hit the hit limit easily, but I am sure at least might occasionally hit the limit and get the 429 error. An API could prevent, or reduce this.

Some concerns people might have:

• This might create extra maintenance load for cg: The same API can be used for the normal website too. This way cg (future SG devs) will not have to maintain data access in two places. Sure, there will be some extra maintenance workload if and when updating things, but reusing the API will reduce it quite significantly.
• Bots/hackers/cheaters will be able to do the "evil" stuff more easily: They can still do it almost just as easily via web scraping, user scripts, etc. And that stresses the server more than APIs. APIs or the lack of them are not gonna make any difference in preventing such users from doing their thing.
• People can make their own GUI/interface/application/etc and use that to access the site, which means no ad revenue for SG: Well, such tools can still be created, and web scaping doesn't generate ad revenue either. However, API might reduce the server load, and could potentially reduce the server cost. Besides, since the API will provide only read access to the data, people will still have to visit the website to actually enter GAs, create them, comment, etc).

Why am I so concerned whether SG has an API or not:
I don't how to put it nicely, but SG has almost no implementations to prevent abusers (multi-account users, re-gifters, etc). All such cases are handled manually. And I as unfortunate enough to come across some of them recently. Well, I had some free time, and I like wasting my time on useless things, so I decided to make some tools to try discover such users. Even though I managed to make the tools I wanted, but during the whole development phase I felt the lack of an official API.
Also, it dawned on me that some of the great tools like SGTools, and the super popular tools like ESGST must be scrapping the website too. And unlike my tool, they probably are being used by 1000s of people, and they run every time these users load a SG page. Which can't be good for SG. Update: Actually, some of the features in these tools might be using the JSON support found here. So, it's possible they might be scrapping only partially.
Also, a quick google search indicated there have been some failed attempts to make unofficial APIs for SG by scrapping the website. Though I believe they are abandoned project, but they are just equally bad for the web server.
So, imo, an official API could help all who use, develop or are impacted by such tools, while lowering the server load.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who read this. And feel free to share your thoughts.

Even though I have very little hope that we will ever get an API, I still had to create this thread, I guess to blow off some steam. Actually, I know we are not going to get an API anytime soon.

Thanks to NoSenses to pointing out to this thread.
Seems we already sort of the API, with at least few of the things I am asking for below. However, it seems to still be missing a lot of things from below.