Collaboration with APIs between frontend and backend developers can be tough. In many of the best scenarios, the schema gets discussed up front, both teams go their own way thinking they understand the direction, and inevitably they need to "true up" at the end, making adjustments. In other situations, frontend devs work around not knowing what the API will look like and finish the last touches when the backend devs deliver a working API, even if it is just a prototype. Many developers use tools such as OpenAPI and Swagger to accomplish such a task.
However, there is a better way. OpenAPI supports a YAML specification for writing an API collaboratively. There are many OpenAPI editors that let you design the API up front. And there are code generators that allow you to generate either your server or client. This way, during those up-front design sessions with frontend and backend developers, you can end with a real API specification and both teams working towards that, with either team making the mapping layer as needed.
We've found that many of the code generators create "finished" code - they don't make it easy to iterate on the API. While this might be great in some scenarios, such as a versioned API, it doesn't work for many other scenarios, such as a frontend and backend deployed together when you don't need to support old versions of the API.
These generators are designed to be fast and lightweight such that you can include them with your CI process in order to build your API client or your API server interfaces and ensure that any changes to the API get detected by both sides.
Generators currently available:
.NET Core Server Interfaces, for the modern C# MVC server approach.
.NET Standard Client, for the modern C# approach for a client.
TypeScript, for a TypeScript client that is agnostic about how you fetch data.
TypeScript RXJS, for a TypeScript client that leverages RxJS.
