OpenApi Tools: OpenAPI Style Validator

A customizable style validator to make sure your OpenApi spec follows your organization's standards.

Summary

In the collaborative world of API development, ensuring consistency and adherence to standards in your OpenAPI (YAML) specification file is a paramount challenge. Even if you've meticulously documented directives and guidelines in a shared PDF or a company wiki, there's no guarantee that every team member will strictly follow them.

One could argue that manual code reviews may catch these deviations, but what if there were a more efficient way to ensure conformity? Enter openapi-style-validator, a tool designed to automate this process. While you may still conduct code reviews to address business logic, requirements, and REST path issues, openapi-style-validator excels at validating the style and adherence to standards, including mandatory examples, naming conventions, descriptions, and more. By integrating this powerful tool into your workflow, you can effortlessly elevate the quality and consistency of your OpenAPI files, leaving you with more time to focus on the critical aspects of your API development.

🏆 Sponsors

Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this project!

🥇 Gold

🥈 Silver

Select your sponsor tier and get your logo here with a link to your website.

🥉 Bronze

Select your sponsor tier and get your company name here with a link to your website.

What it can validate

API Info

• API license must be present and non-empty string
• API description must be present and non-empty string
• API contact must be present and non-empty string

Operations

• OperationId must be present and non-empty string
• Operation description must be present and non-empty string
• Operation must have a tag and non-empty string
• Operation summary must be present and non-empty string

Models

• All model properties must have examples
• All model properties must have descriptions
• All required properties must be listed among the properties

Naming convention

• Enforce naming convention for paths, parameters (path, query and cookie), headers and properties
  • underscore_case
  • UNDERSCORE_UPPER_CASE
  • camelCase
  • hyphen-case
  • Hyphen-Upper-Case

Paid Alternatives

This project was started because when I tried SwaggerHub (which is the paid version of the swagger toolkit), they had something similar, but it was proprietary. I didn't want to pay for the service so I created this project in my free times. I did not validate lately if they still have this feature.

How to use the style validator

For now, the project is a simple command line interface (CLI) and a library. The easiest way to use it right now is to use the CLI and check the output. It will list all errors found based on the options you provided.

To build

The project is configured to use gradle. To build the jar, just do:

gradlew assemble

or if you want to invoke the jar creation directly

gradlew shadowJar

To change the code

If you want to open the project, I highly suggest that you use IntelliJ IDEA Community (Free) or Ultimate (paid). This IDE is cross platform so it should work on any OS. This project was created using this tool and you can just open it directly. Maybe you can use other tools to open the project but I will not provide any support.

To launch

java -jar openapi-style-validator.jar -s ./path/to/spec.yaml -o ./path/to/options.json

Example using the default output path for the jar (replace <version> with the current version):

java -jar modules/cli/build/libs/openapi-style-validator-cli-<version>-all.jar -s specs/petstore.yaml -o specs/options.json

Command Line

Parameter	Required?	Description
-s, -source	yes	The path to your json/yaml spec file
-o, -options	no	The path to your json options file

Options File

The options file is described in json (example in specs/options.json), and has the following possible values:

Option	Type	Possible Values	Default Value	Description
validateInfoLicense	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a license section in the info section
validateInfoDescription	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a description attribute in the info section
validateInfoContact	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a contact section in the info section
validateOperationOperationId	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is an operation id for each operation
validateOperationDescription	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a description for each operation
validateOperationTag	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a tag for each operation
validateOperationSummary	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that there is a summary for each operation
validateModelPropertiesExample	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that the properties of the Schemas have an example value defined
validateModelPropertiesDescription	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that the properties of the Schemas have a description value defined
validateModelRequiredProperties	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures that all required properties of the Schemas are listed among their properties
validateModelNoLocalDef	boolean	true, false	true	Not implemented yet
validateNaming	boolean	true, false	true	Ensures the names follow a given naming convention
ignoreHeaderXNaming	boolean	true, false	true	Exclude from validation header parameters starting with x-
pathNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	HyphenCase	Naming convention for paths
parameterNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	CamelCase	Global naming convention for all parameter types (path, query and cookie) (note)
pathParamNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	(same as parameterNamingConvention)	Specific naming convention for path parameters (note)
queryParamNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	(same as parameterNamingConvention)	Specific naming convention for query parameters (note)
cookieParamNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	(same as parameterNamingConvention)	Specific naming convention for cookie parameters (note)
headerNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	UnderscoreUpperCase	Naming convention for headers
schemaNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	PascalCase	Naming convention for schemas
propertyNamingConvention	string	CamelCase, PascalCase, HyphenUpperCase, HyphenCase, UnderscoreCase, UnderscoreUpperCase, AnyCase	CamelCase	Naming convention for properties
allowedModelProperties	array	["_links", "_embedded"]	[]	An array of property names that are authorised even if they do not match to the "propertyNamingConvention"

Parameter Naming Convention hierarchy

The Parameter Naming Convention can be defined by a combination of the following options in the options.json file:

• parameterNamingConvention
• pathParamNamingConvention
• queryParamNamingConvention
• cookieParamNamingConvention

The first option (parameterNamingConvention) defines a global convention for all other parameter naming convention options (path, query and cookie), unless they are explicitly defined in the options.json file.

In other words, the pathParamNamingConvention, queryParamNamingConvention and cookieParamNamingConvention are specific for the parameter type their names indicate. Thus, they take precedence over parameterNamingConvention when they are defined. If not defined, the undefined option is assigned the same value for parameterNamingConvention (either explicitly defined or default).

Example 1:

{
  /*
    'parameterNamingConvention' is not defined.
        Then it assumes the 'CamelCase' convention.
   */
  "pathParamNamingConvention": "UnderscoreCase",
  "queryParamNamingConvention": "HyphenCase"
  /*
    'cookieParamNamingConvention' is not defined.
        Then it assumes the same value as 'parameterNamingConvention',
        which is its default value ('CamelCase').
   */
}

Example 2:

{
  "parameterNamingConvention": "HyphenCase",
  "pathParamNamingConvention": "UnderscoreCase",
  "queryParamNamingConvention": "HyphenCase"
  /*
    'cookieParamNamingConvention' is not defined.
        Then it assumes the same value as 'parameterNamingConvention',
        which is explicitly defined as 'HyphenCase'.
   */
}

Supported Extensions

We sometimes have some paths in our API that are there for legacy reasons. To support this scenario, there is now the possibility to add an extension property in your spec named x-style-validator-ignored. Here is an example:

/my-pathWithWeird_NAMING-FoRLeGaCyReAsOnSLOL:
  x-style-validator-ignored: true
  post:
    tags:
      - Whatever
    summary: A summary
    /* missing operating id or other important property */
    responses:
      200:
        description: OK
  get:
    ...

The path (GET, POST, etc..) will be completely ignored by the style validator.

Roadmap

To view the latest version of the roadmap, please see the official roadmap.

Releases on maven central

The different components of this project are released on Maven Central:

The core library:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.openapitools.openapistylevalidator</groupId>
  <artifactId>openapi-style-validator-lib</artifactId>
  <version>${validatorVersion}</version>
</dependency>

The command line tool (without dependency):

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.openapitools.openapistylevalidator</groupId>
  <artifactId>openapi-style-validator-cli</artifactId>
  <version>${validatorVersion}</version>
</dependency>

The command line tool is also available as standalone jar (containing its dependencies):

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.openapitools.openapistylevalidator</groupId>
  <artifactId>openapi-style-validator-cli</artifactId>
  <version>${validatorVersion}</version>
  <classifier>all</classifier>
</dependency>

You can download it manually (replace the <version> placeholder in following URL):

https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/openapitools/openapistylevalidator/openapi-style-validator-cli/<version>/openapi-style-validator-cli-<version>-all.jar