Api Specification Template
In the early years of specifications there was healthy competition between the formats.
Api specification template. Best practices for defining an api specification. Finally i got sick with the webservice spec documents we were using at my previous employer. Webservice api specification doc template easy simple clean api doc template built as a google doc page. You can generate documentation automatically and much more with this tool.
This is by no means rocket science but over time ive created a template that i now tend to use and have been asked to share. While it is often used interchangeably with definition api specification is much more concerned with the overall behavior of the api and how it links to other apis. Also check out aglio the api blueprint renderer. Conveniently when the time comes to publish an api externally this serves as an invaluable tool for creating public documentation.
The xml template can be imported into your own confluence instance. The two are intricately linked you can derive documentation from specification and vice versa but where they diverge is a much larger data set than where they converge. You can see the markdown template alongside an example in this gist. I searched all over the web for a document template that i could use for laying out our new web services api specification.
Web service api specification doc template. So today we thought we would outline the differences and the importance of api documentation api specifications and api definitions. But now without a doubt the openapi specification is the most popular with the largest community momentum and tooling. The three most popular rest api specifications are as follows.
The documentation team is still able to provide descriptive documentation in the api spec and all code parametersexamples are already included making the transition to documentation a snap. Openapi formally called swagger raml and api blueprint. How to write good api documentation. Here are some examples.
Best practices for defining an api specification related articles. The following extracts from confluence provide blank html and xml based templates that you can use to build your own api specifications. Please dont request edit access to this demo document. We are often asked about the differences between api specifications and api documentation.
I found several ones good and bad but none were up to my expectations.