Welcome to the OpenAPI Initiative (OAI) April 2024 Newsletter! This is our new, regular round-up of the latest stories from across the OpenAPI landscape. We aim to keep you in touch with what’s going on with the development of the OpenAPI Specification, new specifications being created under the OpenAPI Initiative, and event-related news.
Initiative News
We’re pleased to announce that Budha Bhattacharya has taken on the role of chairperson for the BGB, taking over from Isabelle Mauny. The BGB brings together members of the OpenAPI Initiative and is a vital forum for the health of the Initiative.
Isabelle has held the post, both on her own and as co-chair, for the past three years and her hard work and dedication have been critical to the health and growth of the OpenAPI Initiative. Thank you, Isabelle!
Budha is currently Developer Advocate at Tyk and brings a wealth of OpenAPI experience from the API management world and use cases across the API lifecycle. Welcome to the role, Budha!
Specification News
We have exciting news about both the specification itself and the team responsible for its development!
Technical Steering Committee Expansion
The Technical Steering Committee (TSC) works to maintain the health of the OpenAPI Specification, producing new versions and bringing the value of OpenAPI to the community.
The TSC was recently been extended to include four new provisional members:
- Ralf Handl.
- Mike Kistler.
- Lorna Mitchell.
- Miguel Quintero.
These new members, joining the existing TSC of Marsh Gardiner, Darrel Miller, Ron Ratovsky and Jeremy Whitlock, will be invaluable in maintaining the health of the OpenAPI Specification, so we thank them in advance for their contribution!
We would also like to thank our newly emeritus members Mike Ralphson and Uri Sarid, who are stepping down from the TSC, for their contributions over the years.
Specification Versions
We are planning to release a new minor version of the OpenAPI Specification this year, version 3.2, to add some small changes that merit more than a patch release. This release will be strictly compatible with 3.1, with a goal of being straightforward to implement. 3.1 is the current, stable version of the specification and we plan to continue to add minor and patch releases to the 3.x line to keep improving and evolving it to meet user needs, and to give a smooth migration path to 4.0 when the time comes.
You can expect to see patch releases for 3.0 and 3.1 to correct minor errors and clarify the existing 3.0.3 and 3.1.0 specifications, and will not require new implementation work to support.
OASComply
Finally the OASComply compliance parser project, which began in 2023, will continue this year. OASComply aims to deliver a community-supported compliance solution for tooling makers working with the OpenAPI Specification.
Towards the end of last year the project uncovered a number of ambiguities in the specification, particularly around external references. This year we will work to resolve those ambiguities with new specification releases and make OASComply available to the community. To learn more about the OASComply project please visit the repository.
Special Interest Groups
We have a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that look at extending OpenAPI to address specific use cases.
Workflows
The Workflows SIG has been working hard to create the (working title) Workflows specification. This new standard describes sequences of API calls in a structured, deterministic way. This will allow API providers to describe more than just their API in OpenAPI, but how all their APIs “fit together”.
The Workflows specification is currently at a release candidate version, with version 1.0.0 coming soon. Like Moonwalk, there’s the same opportunities to get involved:
- Join the weekly meeting (OAI calendar).
- Take a look at the repository and the release candidate specification to find out more and provide feedback.
- Checkout GitHub Discussions and get involved there.
- Join the Workflows Slack channel.
For a detailed walkthrough of Workflows please read the overview from the API Futures series or watch a talk from Apidays Paris, both courtesy of Frank Kilcommins. We’ll also be posting another detailed walkthrough on our blog very soon.
Moonwalk
Moonwalk – our OpenAPI Specification v4 codename – has been in-flight since the start of the year. The project was formally announced on our blog last December, where Marsh Gardiner and Darrel Miller highlighted what version 4 of OpenAPI aims to achieve, and the team has been hard at work getting started on the work. We’d also like to highlight this post from Henry Andrews that highlights the need for consistency between existing and future versions, which the team is working hard to achieve.
If you want help with the development of Moonwalk there are a couple of ways you can get involved:
- Come to our weekly meeting where we discuss current developments and next steps (OAI calendar).
- Join the Moonwalk Slack channel.
- Checkout GitHub Discussions and get involved there.
Remember this is your chance to get involved with the next major version of the OpenAPI Specification. If there’s something you need or you have a great idea then get involved!
Overlays
The Overlays standard describes repeatable modifications that can be made to an OpenAPI description. This is useful for adding extra data that tools such as documentation or SDK generators can use, or removing internal information that should not be published with your OpenAPI description.
The specification is in a pre-release state and open for community comment and feedback. There is interest in the community and a few tools are starting to implement the current standard. Visit the repository to see the current specification and issue discussions, and connect with us in the Slack channel.
Getting Involved
There are a number of SIGs covering different topics and industry verticals. Visit our community repository to learn more.
Events
There are a few upcoming events where OpenAPI will be running a session or track. You can find the full list of upcoming events on the OAI event calendar.
OpenAPI Mini Summit – April 15th, 2024
First up we are looking forward to the OpenAPI Mini Summit being held on 15th April in Seattle as part of the Open Source Summit North America (OSS NA).
We’ll review current developments in the OpenAPI world and provide a detailed walkthrough of the Workflows specification with some examples that will help bring it to life.
Registration is only $5, so please check out the event registration page if you are interested in attending (please note: registration for the OpenAPI MiniSummit requires registering for OSS NA).
Apidays Singapore – April 17th – 18th, 2024
We’ll be at Apidays Singapore hosting our OAI track hosted by Erik Wilde as part of the conference. We have speakers talking about the value of OpenAPI in their organizations, both from the perspective of the adoption of open standards and how they utilize OpenAPI to ensure consistency and quality in their APIs.
Jax, Mainz – April 22nd – 26th, 2024
We’ll also be at the Jax conference in Mainz, Germany where we’ll be running another OAI track, again hosted by Erik Wilde. We’ll be hearing about the importance of OpenAPI for the API ecosystem and the importance of OpenAPI to API release delivery.
Event Outlook
There are some more events where we are planning OAI tracks:
- Apidays New York, April 30 & May 1, 2024
- Apidays Helsinki & North, May 28th – 29th, 2024
Please check out the OAI event calendar for a full list of upcoming events.
Finally…
That’s it for this newsletter. If you have news you want to share with the OpenAPI community please get in touch by email or join the Outreach channel on Slack.