July 2017 Summaries

In order to ensure the correctness of automatically generated code, APIMatic has been working on unit testing and automation. Initially, they relied on manual testing with a comprehensive API description and a test API, but this approach became tedious and unsustainable. They have since adopted an automated testing framework using Jenkins CI, which generates language-specific unit tests for their SDKs. While there are limitations to this approach, APIMatic aims to further improve their testing capabilities by introducing a mock API testing framework that will enable 100% test coverage for each generated SDK, ensuring that any SDK delivered to customers works correctly.

The Neutrino API platform provides a highly available, performant global network that allows developers to focus on their product rather than building and maintaining complex in-house tools. The team uses APIMatic to create high-quality Software Development Kits (SDKs) for developers using their APIs, saving at least 200 hours of development time and cutting huge SDK development costs. They use APIMatic as a storage platform for API definitions, transforming them into different formats as needed. With APIMatic, Neutrino API can make changes to their API definition in one place and instantly get updated definitions in various formats, saving significant time and effort. The tool has become an essential part of their development process, allowing them to focus on product development rather than manual API maintenance.

OAuth 2.0 is an open standard for authorization that allows a resource owner (user) to provide secure delegated access to their data on a resource server without sharing their credentials, enabling API providers to adopt the standard widely. The developer has completed the first iteration of adding proper support for OAuth 2.0 in their SDKs, addressing token acquirement and refresh mechanisms previously left up to the user. The updated SDKs now support all grant types, including implicit flow only for AngularJS applications running in browsers. To get started with OAuth-enabled SDKs, developers need to update authentication settings in their API description and configure required parameters like Redirect URL and Client Secret. The implementation of token acquirement mechanisms varies for different grant types, but the SDK seamlessly obtains an access token before making secure endpoint calls, and handles token refresh automatically.

APIMatic's Code Generation Engine transforms input API description files into a standardized format, validates and corrects them, generates client libraries, and includes documentation and packaging options. The engine follows a five-step process: transformation, validation and correction, SDK generation, documentation generation, and packaging. It allows API providers to customize code generation using simple settings, and the generated SDKs come with utility classes, authentication helpers, and configuration files, providing strict language bindings and SOLID software design principles. While automatic SDK generation offers benefits such as increased API adoption and cost savings, there are scenarios where manual SDK writing might be more suitable, depending on specific business logic requirements.