Swagger (OpenAPI Documentation)

Quick Summary

Swagger documentation provides a standardized way to describe and visualize APIs, showing what requests they accept and what responses they return - like a detailed menu that shows all available options. It allows developers to understand, test, and integrate with APIs without needing to read through pages of technical documentation.

Xano automatically generates documentation for your APIs using Swagger, which provides the information in a standardized format called OpenAPI. The documentation contains information like the API name, description, inputs, and expected response.

Using these standardized methods allows for easy import of your API information into other platforms, such as your frontend of choice, as well as AI chatbots and large-language models for development assistance. In addition, it provides you an easy way to send API specifications to other developers you might be working with, without giving them access to the rest of your Xano workspace.

Accessing the Documentation

Documentation is generated for each API group. At the top of the API group page, just click to access the auto-generated documentation for that group.

Locating the Swagger documentation

Using the Documentation

1

Review the API information shown.

Each API will show you the method, the API name, and the description on the left side.

On the right, you'll see a 🔓 icon if that API requires authentication.

Click the V to interact with your API of choice.

2

Sending Authenticated Requests

If any of the API(s) you want to interact with require authentication, click at the top of the page to supply an authentication token.

3

Click to send a request to that API.

4

Fill in any request body values or parameters necessary.

5

Click to send the test request.

You can review the response given below.

Additional Features

Defining Sample Inputs and Responses

Note

We're currently rolling out this feature to all users as part of our next release. If you don't have it yet, you will soon! Hang tight.

When testing your function stacks in Xano, you can define sample input and output examples for your Swagger documentation.

It is important that you do this to ensure that your documentation is as effective as possible, as well as for helping AI models understand what's expected when interacting with your APIs.

1

In the 'response' section of the Run panel, click Set As Example

2

Review the sample input and response, and make any necessary adjustments

Make sure these do not include any sensitive information.

3

Click Save and you will see these defined in your Swagger documentation.

If you need to make adjustments later, you can do so from the settings menu.

Copy / Copy as cURL

Throughout the documentation, you'll see icons. These will let you quickly copy the contents of that element, and in the presence of a cURL command, copy that command to quickly paste into a terminal or other API / testing platform of choice, such as Postman.

JSON OpenAPI Spec

You can click the link at the top of the page to access a JSON-formatted version of your API spec. This is useful for other external platforms that rely on this type of standardized information about your APIs or providing to AI chatbots / LLMs.