# Listing Subjects

This guide shows how to **list the existing subjects** from EventSourcingDB using its **HTTP API**. You'll learn how to **list either all or a desired subset** of the existing subjects.

## Listing All Subjects

The simplest case is **listing all subjects** for which events have been stored. To do this, send an HTTP request using **`POST`** to the **`/api/v1/read-subjects`** endpoint:

```shell
curl \
  -i \
  -X POST \
  -H "authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"baseSubject": "/"}' \
  http://localhost:3000/api/v1/read-subjects
```

If everything worked as expected, the server will respond with **HTTP status code `200 OK`**:

```
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
```

The response body will then contain a list of all existing subjects. If you've followed the steps in **[Writing Events](/learn/tutorials/first-steps-with-eventsourcingdb/writing-events)**, you should see the following three subjects:

```json
{
  "type": "subject",
  "payload": {
    "subject": "/"
  }
}
{
  "type": "subject",
  "payload": {
    "subject": "/books"
  }
}
{
  "type": "subject",
  "payload": {
    "subject": "/books/42"
  }
}
```

In reality, the output will look slightly different – the subjects are returned as compact **NDJSON**, with each subject occupying a single line.

## Listing a Specific Branch Only

Sometimes you don't need all subjects – listing just a **single branch** is sufficient. To do this, set the **`baseSubject` parameter** to the desired root:

```shell
curl \
  -i \
  -X POST \
  -H "authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"baseSubject": "/books"}' \
  http://localhost:3000/api/v1/read-subjects
```

In this case, only the subjects located **directly below** `/books` will be returned.