snowboard

snowboard

API blueprint parser and renderer.

Installation

The latest executables for supported platforms are available from the release page.

Just extract and start using it:

$ wget https://github.com/subosito/snowboard/releases/download/${version}/snowboard-${version}.${os}-${arch}.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf snowboard-${version}.${os}-${arch}.tar.gz
$ ./snowboard -h

Alternatively, you can also use options below:

Homebrew

$ brew tap subosito/packages
$ brew install snowboard

Note: If you want build from master branch you can use brew install --HEAD snowboard

Docker

You can also use automated build docker image on subosito/snowboard:

$ docker pull subosito/snowboard
$ docker run -it --rm subosito/snowboard -h

To run snowboard with the current directory mounted to /docs:

$ docker run -it --rm -v $PWD:/docs subosito/snowboard html -i API.apib -o output.html

Note: Besides image on docker hub, you can also use image on quay.io/subosito/snowboard.

Manual

$ git clone https://github.com/subosito/snowboard.git
$ cd snowboard
$ make install

Note: ensure you have installed Go and configured your GOPATH and PATH.

Usage

Let's say we have API Blueprint document called API.apib, like:

# API
## GET /message
+ Response 200 (text/plain)

        Hello World!

There are some scenarios we can perform:

Generate HTML Documentation

To generate HTML documentation we can do:

$ snowboard html -i API.apib -o output.html

Above command will generate ouput.html using snowboard default template (called alpha).

Using Custom Template

If you want to use custom template, you can use flag -t for that:

$ snowboard html -i API.apib -o output.html -t awesome-template.html

To see how the template looks like, you can see snowboard default template located in templates/alpha.html.

Serve HTML Documentation

If you want to access HTML documentation via HTTP, especially on local development, you can pass -s flag:

$ snowboard html -i API.apib -o output.html -t awesome-template.html -s

With this flag, You can access HTML documentation on localhost:8088 and any updates on both input and template file will trigger auto-regeneration.

If you need to customize binding address, you can use flag -b.

Generate formatted API blueprint

When you have documentation splitted across files, you can customize flags -o to allow snowboard to produce single formatted API blueprint.

$ snowboard apib -i project/splitted.apib -o API.apib

Validate API blueprint

Besides render to HTML, snowboard also support validates API blueprint document. You can use lint subcommand.

$ snowboard lint -i API.apib

Mock server from API blueprint

Another snowboard useful feature is having mock server. You can use mock subcommand for that.

$ snowboard mock -i API.apib

Then you can use localhost:8087 for accessing mock server. You can customize the address by passing flag -b.

External Files

You can split your API blueprint document to several files and use partial helper to includes it to your main document.

{{partial "some-resource.apib"}}

Alternatively, you can also use HTML comment syntax to include those files:

<!-- partial(some-resource.apib) -->

or

<!-- include(some-resource.apib) -->

Seed Files

As your API blueprint document become large, you might move some value to separate file for easier organization and modification. Snowboard supports this as well.

Just place your values into a json file, say, seed.json:

{
  "official": {
    "username": "olaf"
  }
}

Then on your API blueprint document you can use seed comment helper:

# API

<!-- seed(seed.json) -->

Our friendly username is {{.official.username}}.

Help

As usual, you can also see all supported flags by passing -h:

$ snowboard -h
NAME:
   snowboard - API blueprint toolkit

USAGE:
   snowboard [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]

COMMANDS:
     lint     Validate API blueprint
     html     Render HTML documentation
     apib     Render API blueprint
     help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --help, -h     show help
   --version, -v  print the version

Examples

You can see examples of snowboard default template outputs, in examples/alpha directory. They looks like:

• Named Resource and Actions
• Real World API
• And many more...

All of the examples are generated from official API Blueprint examples