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Sharad Raj (He/Him)
Sharad Raj (He/Him)

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Tools for generating REST API docs rapidly?

So let's assume you have this REST API in whatever foo language, how will you document it if in hurry or you don't want to do complex things just for the sake of it.

Let's have a discussion and share resources (-.-)

PS: It's 11pm here so I may be on sleep mode after some time.

Top comments (11)

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drsimplegraffiti profile image
Abayomi Ogunnusi

Swagger will do magic....But postman documentation is divine

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sharadcodes profile image
Sharad Raj (He/Him)

I hear about swagger a lot

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janstepien profile image
Jan Stępień

You can use content negotiation.

Whenever your API receives a request with Accept: text/html you respond with a static HTML file. It documents the resource available at the requested path. Your resources become self-documenting.

The HTML files can link to other resources served by your API. This makes it easier to navigate the entire documentation in a web browser.

I like this approach for its simplicity. It doesn't need any library and it works in every framework. Its main weakness is maintainability; the documentation won't keep itself up to date automatically.

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sharadcodes profile image
Sharad Raj (He/Him)

I'll be reading this in depth, heard for the first time. Thanks for sharing this :)

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ryanleonbutler profile image
ryanleonbutler

Swagger UI and ReDoc is nice. Fastapi also uses both.

github.com/swagger-api/swagger-ui
github.com/Redocly/redoc

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James Bridgewater

The ReDoc documentation for an API I worked with was very nice, easy to read.

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Sharad Raj (He/Him) • Edited

I see this redoc more often than swagger when exploring REST APIs, probably because of the UI

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sharadcodes profile image
Sharad Raj (He/Him) • Edited

I'm seriously considering making a theme with clean ui for this stuff which would be autogenerated for APIs. I mean seriously, not every project needs swagger, but maybe we are going a level higher every few months to be not considered as laid-back .. 😂

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Osinachi Chukwujama • Edited

You should consider optic. It monitors your traffic and generates the endpoints and data associated with each end point.

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sharadcodes profile image
Sharad Raj (He/Him)

Oo.. Nice. Will try it out asap

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ericbond profile image
Eric

There is an interesting one combining Swagger, Postman, and JMeter. Great one: Apidog. At least take a try.