An Interactive Approach to API Prototyping Using OpenAPI

I built a real-time API prototyping tool from scratch. A few weeks ago, I shared my initial idea of how my ideal API prototyping tool should work. At the end of that article, I wrote that the tool "doesn't exist yet in a fully formed shape." I started putting a few things together locally on my laptop until I got to a point where I had a working tool. Keep reading to learn how I did it.

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I initially entertained the thought of building the whole thing from scratch. But then I realized it would take too long, and I wanted to be able to use something right away. It didn't have to be perfect. However, I wanted to try it and improve it over time with as little effort as possible. So, I investigated how I could use existing tools, libraries, and solutions to get to a point where I had a working prototyping tool. But before we get into all that, let’s first reflect on the importance of API prototyping.

The ability to have a simple version of an API to experiment with and get feedback from stakeholders is the main value of API prototyping. With an API prototype, anyone can see how an API would feel without having to engage a team of engineers. API prototypes let potential consumers test use cases and provide valuable feedback about request parameters, payloads, and responses. API prototyping is more than mocking because it allows you to bake in functionality. You can, for instance, let consumers create resources and then read them. Basically, the whole CRUD operations should work on a prototype.

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