API Documentation

Laminas API Tools offers the ability to generate API documentation using the Admin UI. The documentation is generated in HTML format and, optionally, in Swagger format. The HTML API documentation is linked in the API Tools UI in the top bar, under the menu item "Documentation".

Although documentation is always available, we recommend that you provide narrative desciptions for all services and operations. These may be edited in the Documentation tab of each REST or RPC service.

For each service and for each HTTP method, you can specify a description of the action. In the case of RESTful services, we make a further delineation between Entity and Collection, providing the ability to document each, as well as the operations available to each. An interesting feature of the API documentation is the ability to generate both the Request and Response body specifications based on the fields configured for the service, using the generate from configuration button.

This button reads the configuration of the API and proposes a JSON response based on the fields specified (the fields are documented under the Fields tab of each REST and RPC service). If desired, you can also manually edit the request and response body descriptions.

Once you have added some API descriptions, you can go to the "Documentation" menu item and view the API documentation (the image below displays version 1 of a service).

You will see the API documentation in HTML format; by default, API Tools provides a template using Bootstrap. You can expand and collapse the information for each service and HTTP method by clicking on its name. API documentation is exposed via the /api-tools/documentation.