OpenAPI As An API Literacy Tool

I've been an advocate for OpenAPI since it's release, writing hundreds of stories about what is possible. I do not support OpenAPI because I think it is the perfect solution, I support it because I think it is the scaffolding for a bridge that will get us closer to a suitable solution for the world we have. I'm always studying how people see OpenAPI, both positive and negative, in hopes of better crafting examples of it being used, and stories about what is possible with the specification.

When you ask people what OpenAPI is for, the most common answer is documentation. The second most common answer is for generating code and SDKs. People often associate documentation and code generation with OpenAPI because these were the first two tools that were developed on top of the API specification. I do not see much pushback from the folks who don't like OpenAPI when it comes to documentation, but when it comes to generating code, I regularly see folks criticizing the concept of generating code using OpenAPI definitions.

When I think about OpenAPI I think about a life cycle full of tools and services that can be delivered, with documentation and code generation being just two of them. I feel it is shortsighted to dismiss OpenAPI because it falls short in any single stop along the API lifecycle as I feel the most important role for OpenAPI is when it comes to API literacy--helping us craft, share, and teach API best practices.

OpenAPI, API Blueprint, and other API definition formats are the best way we currently have to define, share, and articulate APIs in a single document. Sure, a well-designed hypermedia API allows you to navigate, explore, and understand the surface area of an API, but how do you summarize that in a shareable and collaborative document that can be also used for documentation, monitoring, testing, and other stops along the API life cycle. 

I wish everybody could read the latest API design book and absorb the latest concepts for building the best API possible. Some folks learn this way, but in my experience, a significant segment of the community learn from seeing examples of API best practices in action. API definition formats allow us to describe the moving parts of an API request and response, which then provides an example that other API developers can follow when crafting their own APIs. I find that many people simply follow the API examples they are familiar with, and OpenAPI allows us to easily craft and shares these examples for them to follow.

If we are going to do APIs at the scale we need to help folks craft RESTful web APIs, as well as hypermedia, GraphQL, and gRPC APIs. We need a way to define our APIs, and articulate this definition to our consumers, as well as to other API providers. This helps me remember to not get hung up on any single use of OpenAPI, and other API specification formats, because first and foremost, these formats help us with API literacy, which has wider implications than any single API implementation, or stops along the API life cycle.