Reports / May 2018

Most of my work over the last few weeks has been working towards introducing an API service based on the functionality in API Star.

The MVP I’m aiming for is along these lines:

Interactive API Documentation that stays in sync with your OpenAPI schema. (Similar to ReadTheDocs, but for Web APIs.)
API Mocking to allow your front end team to get started before you’ve deployed anything to the back-end.
Dynamic client libraries in JavaScript and Python, that you can point at any OpenAPI schema and start interacting with the API. (Updating the work that went into CoreAPI, but adopting OpenAPI as the schema format, and making some usability improvements along the way.)
Validation of your OpenAPI schema as part of your team’s CI process.

All of the functionality that’s being built out is going to be available as part of the open-source API Star command-line tool, but I’d like to also introduce a hosted service alongside that. (Free for personal projects, paid for organisations.)

In terms of REST framework the benefits should initially be around improving our API documentation and client libraries.

Longer term plans are around admin interfaces, and supporting both GraphQL and Web API styles, but those are too far off to talk about in detail right now.

We’ll be in a position to start private beta trials with our sponsors very shortly.

I need your feedback here, too. Some things I’d love to hear about:

What is your team currently using for your API documention?
Are you using OpenAPI, RAML, or any other schema format, and what tooling & benefits are they providing for the team?
Does your team currently use API mocking for early integration, testing, or local devlopment?

Please do drop me an email - I’d be very happy to set up a discussion with your team around your API development workflow and pain points, and get you on board with a beta-trial if appropriate.

As ever, thanks to all our sponsors, contributors, and users for your ongoing support.

— Tom Christie, 4th June, 2018.