Can a developer successfully work with an API without a standard API documentation? My answer is as good as yours. This means that API documentation is essential to all developers. A good API documentation is easy to understand, developer-friendly, simple, and concise.
According to the OpenAPI specification initiative, OpenAPI is the standard for defining your API. This means that with the help of this file, you can migrate your API documentation from one platform to another. For example, you can migrate your API docs from Postman to ReadMe or Mintlify or vice versa.
This tutorial will walk you through integrating your OpenAPI spec file into your Mintlify project. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a fully functional API documentation, powered by an OpenAPI spec file.
Prerequisites
1.) Mintlify installed
2.) Node.js installed: Install Node.js (version 19 or higher) before proceeding. You can download it here.
3.) Basic knowledge of OpenAPI
4.) You need to have some endpoints in your openAPI spec file in JSON or YAML format.
For this tutorial, I will use the Movie Database OpenAPI spec file. You can find the complete documentation here, and you can also clone the project from the GitHub repository if you want to work with it on your local computer.
Alright, let’s get started.
STEP 1: Set up your Mintlify Project
1.) Go to the Mintlify website and create a new account. Follow the instructions and set up your first documentation deployment, and it will look like this:
2.) Go to any Code Editor of your choice, navigate to the project directory, open the terminal, and run the following command:
npm i -g mintlify
The command is used to install Mintlify CLI globally.
3.) After installing Mintlify globally, enable local preview of your Mintlify documentation with the following command:
mintlify dev
STEP 2: Understanding the OpenAPI spec file format
The OpenAPI spec file, which is mostly edited in the Swagger Editor, is stored in JSON or YAML format. You can use any format of your choice, but it is advisable to use the YAML format because it is easier to read and maintain.
STEP 3: Integrate your OpenAPI spec file into Mintlify
To integrate your OpenAPI spec file with your Mintlify project, follow these steps:
1.) When done documenting your OpenAPI spec file, save it in JSON or YAML format to your local device, and ensure that you put your “openapi.yaml or openapi.json” file in the same directory as the "api-reference" folder in your Mintlify project.
2.) Go to your docs.json file and call your OpenAPI using the correct file path.
The openapi contains two properties here, “source” and “directory”
“source”: “/api-reference/openapi3.json”: The source specifies the path to your OpenAPI spec file."directory": "api-reference": This specifies the directory where the OpenAPI spec file is located.
When you are done, it is important to validate your OpenAPI spec file before pushing it to your GitHub repository. Use the command “mintlify openapi-check <openapiFilenameOrUrl>” to check for errors and validate your work. If no errors, it gives the response: “✅ Your OpenAPI definition is valid”. If there is an error, it points to the specific endpoint where the error is and the reason for the error.
By doing this, all your documentation in the OpenAPI spec file will be appropriately displayed.
Conclusion
You have successfully integrated your OpenAPI spec file in Mintlify. By leveraging this knowledge, you won’t need to manually document your endpoint in Mintlify anymore, but rather you can use the OpenAPI spec file to document your endpoint and use it across different platforms.
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