Designing APIs with Swagger and OpenAPI

1 Introducing APIs and OpenAPI

This chapter covers

• Describing an API ecosystem
• What OpenAPI and Swagger are
• When to use OpenAPI
• An overview of this book

In this chapter we’ll take a look at the world of APIs and OpenAPI so we can give you an overview of the topics covered in this book. We’ll start by looking at the benefits of describing an API, at how these descriptions form part of an API ecosystem, and where OpenAPI fits in. We’ll look at an example of an OpenAPI document and see when to use OpenAPI in practice. Let’s get started.

1.1 What is an API ecosystem?

We like the word ecosystem. It describes the interactions and relationships between living and nonliving things within a fully functioning environment. We like to picture a wetland ...