Getting Started

Step 1: Create your organization

After logging in, Create an organization. The organization will serve as a container for all of your services.

Step 2: Create your first service

An API Builder service represents a full REST service. Each service is fully described in a single file. By convention, we name these files 'api.json' and store them in the root of the project that defines the server implementing the service (e.g. the root directory of your source repository).

The easiest way to get started is to download an example api.json file and then edit it. This api.json file is the description of the REST API for API Builder itself.

When you are ready, click "Add Application" (located in the upper-right corner of your organization's screen) to upload your api.json file.

View the specification of api.json for detailed information on how to describe your service.

Step 3: View your beautiful documentation!

At this point, you should have some beautiful, API Builder generated documentation for your REST service. If you distribute the URL with the version number 'latest', you will always have a link to the most current version of your service.

Step 4: Download a client library

When viewing your service, The left-hand nav bar will include a section titled "Clients." Take a look at the Ning Async Http Client 1.9 and the Ruby client, for example, to see how they look.

Each client is presented as a stand-alone single file, which should make it easy to drop directly into your project or to publish an artifact to a server for sharing.

Step 5: Explore

From your organization, explore the settings to define your package name for generated clients and to mark your organization public if you want.

To access the settings when viewing your organization, click on "Org Details" in the left nav.

Step 6: Use the command line interface

The apibuilder-cli present a simple command line utility named 'apibuilder' to facility the upload of new versions of your service and to download the generated code into your source tree.

Step 7: Get involved!

Follow the API Builder project on GitHub

Find us on slack at #apicollective

Ask questions / report bugs

Contribute! View our Todo list and open issues/feature requests. Or create api.json specifications for common services and upload them as public services for all.