HTTP API Contract (OpenAPI)
Your team must define and maintain a complete OpenAPI specification that describes your system’s external REST interface.
This document is the formal contract between your backend and any external client.
What You Must Produce
Your OpenAPI specification must:
- Define all implemented endpoints
- Include request and response schemas
- Include error responses
- Declare authentication mechanisms
- Include meaningful operation summaries and descriptions
The specification must always reflect the current implementation. If the API changes, the contract must change.
🏆 Swagger / OpenAPI Best Practices
The essentials for authoring maintainable, accurate OpenAPI (Swagger) specifications and recommended tooling.
🧱 Basic Structure
Portions of the structural explanation and example YAML below are adapted from the official OpenAPI Specification documentation (OpenAPI Initiative).
💡 How to Add Your Spec
Step-by-step tutorial to add your OpenAPI spec to Redocusaurus and Docusaurus
📄️ Generating the Contract from Controller Stubs
In this course, you are encouraged to define your API early by writing controller stubs and generating the OpenAPI specification from those stubs.
📚 Locally added Spec from static/
API Specification from static/openapi.yml.yaml
📚 Externally added Spec from URL
API Specification from external courses.ianapplebaum.com/public/docs/openapi.yaml