How to retrieve article comments in Zoho Desk

Retrieving article comments in Zoho Desk is done via a single GET request to the Help Center articles endpoint, passing your Help Center ID and Article ID as path parameters.

Why this matters

Knowledge base articles in Zoho Desk allow end-users to leave comments, and those comments can surface valuable feedback, unanswered questions, or recurring issues. If you are building a reporting dashboard, a moderation workflow, or syncing Desk content with an external system, you will need to pull these comments programmatically. This is also useful for teams that want to audit article quality without manually reviewing each page in the portal.

Step-by-step

Step 1. Confirm you have API access to your Zoho Desk portal and that you hold a valid OAuth token with the appropriate Desk scope. Without authenticated access, the endpoint will reject your request. ^[8]

Step 2. Identify the two required path parameters you will need before making the call:

• helpcenter_id — the unique identifier for your Help Center portal instance.
• article_id — the unique identifier for the specific knowledge base article whose comments you want to retrieve.

Both values can be found in the Zoho Desk admin panel or by querying the Help Center and Articles list endpoints first. ^[8]

Step 3. Construct your GET request to the following endpoint, substituting the real IDs for the placeholders:

GET /api/v1/helpcenter/{helpcenter_id}/articles/{article_id}/comments

For example, using Python with a pre-configured client object, the call looks like this:

comments = client.get_article_comments(
    helpcenter_id="your_helpcenter_id",
    article_id="your_article_id"
)

The method issues a GET request to the path shown above and returns the comments associated with that article. ^[8]

Step 4. Pass the optional p parameter if you need to control pagination or apply filters. The p argument accepts a dictionary of query parameters, letting you page through large comment sets rather than retrieving everything in one response. ^[8]

comments = client.get_article_comments(
    helpcenter_id="your_helpcenter_id",
    article_id="your_article_id",
    p={"page": 2, "limit": 25}
)

Step 5. Parse the response payload. The API returns comment data in JSON format. Iterate over the returned list to access individual comment fields such as author, timestamp, and comment body for downstream processing or display. ^[8]

Common pitfalls

• Wrong IDs in the path. Mixing up the helpcenterid and articleid — or using a portal ID where a Help Center ID is expected — will result in a 404 or empty response. Double-check both values against your Zoho Desk admin settings before calling the endpoint. ^[8]
• Missing pagination handling. If an article has a large number of comments and you do not use the p parameter to paginate, you may only receive a partial result set. Always check whether the response indicates additional pages. ^[8]
• Undocumented vs. documented endpoints. As noted by community members, some Zoho Desk API paths are not officially documented and may change without notice. The article comments endpoint shown here (/api/v1/helpcenter/{helpcenterid}/articles/{articleid}/comments) is the supported path to use. ^[7][8]

What to check

• Verify both IDs resolve correctly — make a test call and confirm the response body references the article you intended, not a 404 error.
• Confirm OAuth scopes — ensure your access token includes the Desk Help Center read scope; missing scopes are a common silent failure point.
• Review pagination in the response — check whether the returned payload includes a page count or hasMore flag, and loop through all pages if you need a complete comment list. ^[8]

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*Beam Help is an independent expert support resource for Zoho products and is not official Zoho support. Always cross-reference with the latest Zoho Desk API documentation for your data center.*