Unable to get the info of the user which doesn't have created any post via REST API

Question

I am unable to get the user info from the REST API. The user has not any post created. I have installed the Basic-Auth plugin. Whenever I try to get the user info, I get the following error.

Request : https://example.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/6

{
    "code": "rest_user_cannot_view",
    "message": "Sorry, you are not allowed to list users.",
    "data": {
        "status": 401
    }
}

But whenever I request the other user, I get the info.

{
    "id": 1,
    "name": "asdf",
    "url": "",
    "description": "",
    "link": "https://example.com/author/drzvikrant/",
    "slug": "asdf",
    "avatar_urls": {
        "24": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4bc329d2835e6584d5b492fdc67a5cde?s=24&d=mm&r=g",
        "48": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4bc329d2835e6584d5b492fdc67a5cde?s=48&d=mm&r=g",
        "96": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4bc329d2835e6584d5b492fdc67a5cde?s=96&d=mm&r=g"
    },
    "meta": [],
    "_links": {
        "self": [
            {
                "href": "https://example.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/1"
            }
        ],
        "collection": [
            {
                "href": "https://example.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users"
            }
        ]
    }
}

I need to get the user info, even if the user have not created any posts.

Answer 1

This is by design and within WP_REST_Users_Controller::get_item_permissions_check() we e.g. have a non-zero check with count_user_posts( $user->ID, $types ).

We note that count_user_posts() is filterable with the get_usernumposts filter so one could change 0 to 1, for the /wp/v2/users/\d+ route:

add_filter( 'rest_request_before_callbacks', function( $response, $handler, $request ){

    if ( WP_REST_Server::READABLE !== $request->get_method() ) {
        return $response;
    }

    if ( ! preg_match( '~/wp/v2/users/\d+~', $request->get_route() ) ) {
        return $response;
    }

    add_filter( 'get_usernumposts', function( $count ) {
        return $count > 0 ? $count : 1;
    } );

    return $response;
}, 10, 3 );

but I would rather recommend creating a custom rest route instead of modifying an existing one like this.