Get started with the API documentation plug-in

This topic tells you how to get started with the API documentation plug-in in Tanzu Developer Portal.

API entries

This section describes API entities, how to add them, and how to update them.

About API entities

The list of API entities is visible on the left side navigation pane of Tanzu Developer Portal. It is also visible on the Overview page of specific components on the home page. APIs are a definition of the interface between components.

Their definition is provided in raw machine-readable and human-readable formats. For more information, see the API plug-in documentation.

Add a demo API entity to the Tanzu Developer Portal software catalog

To add a demo API entity and its related Catalog objects, follow the steps used for registering any other software catalog entity:

  1. Go to the Home page of Tanzu Developer Portal by clicking Home on the left-side navigation pane.

  2. Click REGISTER ENTITY.

  3. In the repository URL text box, type the link to the catalog-info.yaml file of your choice or use the following sample definition.

  4. Save this code block as catalog-info.yaml.

  5. Upload it to the Git repository of your choice and copy the link to catalog-info.yaml. This demo setup includes a domain named demo-domain with a single system named demo-system. This systems consists of two microservices (demo-app-ms-1 and demo-app-ms-1) and one API named demo-api that demo-app-ms-1 provides and that demo-app-ms-2 consumes.

    apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Domain
metadata:
  name: demo-domain
  description: Demo Domain for Tanzu Application Platform
  annotations:
    'backstage.io/techdocs-ref': dir:.
spec:
  owner: demo-team

---

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: demo-app-ms-1
  description: Demo Application's Microservice-1
  tags:
    - microservice
  annotations:
    'backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector': 'app.kubernetes.io/part-of=demo-app-ms-1'
    'backstage.io/techdocs-ref': dir:.
spec:
  type: service
  providesApis:
   - demo-api
  lifecycle: alpha
  owner: demo-team
  system: demo-app

---

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: demo-app-ms-2
  description: Demo Application's Microservice-2
  tags:
    - microservice
  annotations:
    'backstage.io/kubernetes-label-selector': 'app.kubernetes.io/part-of=demo-app-ms-2'
    'backstage.io/techdocs-ref': dir:.
spec:
  type: service
  consumesApis:
   - demo-api
  lifecycle: alpha
  owner: demo-team
  system: demo-app

---

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: System
metadata:
  name: demo-app
  description: Demo Application for Tanzu Application Platform
  annotations:
    'backstage.io/techdocs-ref': dir:.
spec:
  owner: demo-team
  domain: demo-domain

---

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: API
metadata:
  name: demo-api
  description: The demo API for Tanzu Developer Portal
  links:
    - url: https://api.agify.io
      title: API Definition
      icon: docs
spec:
  type: openapi
  lifecycle: experimental
  owner: demo-team
  system: demo-app # Or specify system name of your choice
  definition: |
    openapi: 3.0.1
    info:
      title: Demo API
      description: defaultDescription
      version: '0.1'
    servers:
      - url: https://api.agify.io
    paths:
      /:
        get:
          description: Auto generated using Swagger Inspector
          parameters:
            - name: name
              in: query
              schema:
                type: string
              example: type_any_name
          responses:
            '200':
              description: Auto generated using Swagger Inspector
              content:
                application/json; charset=utf-8:
                  schema:
                    type: string
                  examples: {}

  6. Paste the link to catalog-info.yaml and click ANALYZE.

  7. Review the catalog entities and click IMPORT.

    Screenshot of the stage for reviewing the entities to be added to the catalog.

  8. Go to the API page by clicking APIs on the left side navigation pane. The catalog changes and entries are visible for further inspection. If you select the system demo-app, the diagram appears as follows:

    Screenshot of the APIs page. It shows the system diagram for the demo dash app.

Update your demo API entry

To update your demo API entry, click demo-api in the list of available APIs in your software catalog and click the Edit icon on the Overview page.

It opens the source catalog-info.yaml file that you can edit. For example, you can change the spec.paths.parameters.example from type_any_name to Tanzu and then save your changes.

After making any edits, Tanzu Developer Portal re-renders the API entry with the next refresh cycle.

Validation Analysis of API specifications

This section describes the Validation Analysis card, the data format needed to populate the card, and how to get automatic scores for your OpenAPI entities.

About the Validation Analysis card

When viewing entities of the kind API on the Overview tab, you see the Validation Analysis card that displays the health of an API through various scoring parameters.

Screenshot of the Validation Analysis card, which is shown at the bottom-right of the Overview tab.

To display the health scores, an API entity must contain the following metadata structure:

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: API
metadata:
  name: NAME
  description: DESCRIPTION
  apiscores:
    scores:
    - id: documentationReport
      label: "Documentation Health"
      value: 34.375
      valueType: percentage
      status: failed
    - id: securityReport
      label: "Security Score"
      value: 70.0
      valueType: percentage
      status: warning
    - id: openApiHealthReport
      label: "OpenAPI Health"
      value: 89.0625
      valueType: percentage
      status: passed
    scoreDetailsURL:  VALIDATION-REPORT-URL-FOR-MORE-DETAILS
# Other API Entity parameters

If an API entity follows this schema, the Validation Analysis card displays helpful information about the API.

    - id:        # Unique ID
      label:     # Descriptive label displayed as a title over the numerical value
      value:     # Any number value
      valueType: # One of the types (percentage or other). Displays the % symbol or displays nothing.
      status:    # One of the statuses (passed, warning, or failed). Displays the number in green, yellow, or red.

Automatic OpenAPI specification validation

To receive automatic validation analysis for OpenAPI specifications by using API Validation Scoring:

  1. Install API Validation and Scoring.
  2. Use API Auto Registration or API Validation Scoring Design GitOps to automatically generate the API entities in Tanzu Developer Portal.

The automatic scoring cannot score or replace API entities created through other methods, such as regular GitOps or manual registration. You might see the following message signaling that the OpenAPI specification was registered with regular GitOps methods or manual registration.

Validation analysis is currently unavailable for APIs registered via TAP GUI without being attached \
to a workload.
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