this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
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This thread sums everything up nicely I think: https://lemmy.ml/post/98675/95459
And for programming.dev specifically, the API did not work for me when they had CF bot protection turned on (endpoints always returned the "Just a moment..." bot check html), it was only after it was turned off a few days ago that it started working for me, because CF doesn't like my IP/browser/something and always gives me endless captcha loops. Previously their stance was that bot IPs had to be explicitly whitelisted to be allowed on their server.
I do not see how critisms for the JS API docs are relevant for my openapi documentation.
This documentation aims to solve all those problems in a language agnostic way. It descibes the endpoints, the request object, the status, the response object, the authentication needed in visual/text. It allows you test it right from the browser, allows you to copy a working curl command, search for endpoints based on keywords, allows you to import the entire spec into postman/alts.
I ve never had any problems with CF instances but I mostly test with voyager.lemmy.ml
Yours is a little bit easier to read, but my main problems remain the same. Here's some initial comments looking at your swagger link from the perspective of a user who is brand new to the lemmy API (and doesn't use Javascript):
I can't tell what the general flow of the API usage in general is. Am I supposed to login/authorize somehow first? Some common examples, especially in at least one programming language (whether that's curl or python or whatever) I think would go a long way to help people understand what they're supposed to do.
How do I know if I need to authorize for a particular endpoint?
What is the entire URL for any given endpoint? It's never really explained clearly.
What is this "servers" dropdown? What's the difference between those?
Endpoint descriptions are often unhelpful.
/usersays "Get the details for a person." It doesn't tell me this is actually how I'm supposed to find their comments or posts. Nothing tells us this.We have to guess what endpoint we might need for a lot of things. Example:
/post/likeis also for dislikes, but it doesn't tell you that. It also never tells you HOW to like or dislike anything, the valid values ofscoredo not appear to be documented. And you're left to assume that's the right field to even use for it.What is the content type of the request supposed to be? JSON is never mentioned anywhere.
What are these named "parameters"? Is that a query parameter? Why does it say "object" and "(query)"? Does this parameter go in the request body instead?
/usershows a parameter called "GetPersonDetails" except in reality this name is (I guess) supposed to be completely ignored, because no part of the request actually uses the string "GetPersonDetails".Schema is missing for many endpoints, like the request part of
/user.What are all these fields under "GetPersonDetails"? Are they all required? Only some? It doesn't say anything about it.
Many of the possible error codes are undocumented.
There's probably more but that's the main stuff I think.
This could use indeed some work
openapi spec allows one to specify the authentication, this has not be done already because there is an open issue to include auth in
lemmy-js-client(I use this to generate the spec) + Need to figure the best approach to convey "elevated" auth endpoints. Endpoints like GetSite where authentication enhances the response.They are actually summaries, they are fine imo. There is an open issue to add the descriptions though.
Yes indeed, things like this should be documented in the description.
This is explicitly mentioned on every request, visually and in the spec.
Query is mentioned when they are query parameters, else it just a request body. This is pretty clear in the text (spec) or visually imo.
GetPersonDetailsis the name of the object if you scroll all the way to the bottom you can inspect it. This more clear in the spec.There is not a single endpoint missing nor its requests.
This could be improved.
Status codes? or the 400 lemmy error? ex:
{ error: "report_reason_required" }Status codes are the same everywhere, 200/201 or 400 with Lemmy error as response. There is one exception that is 401 that can be thrown for every auth required endpoint where auth fails. But these are standard. Ig this should documented.Now the "LemmyErrorTypes". This could be improved, but it is hard to, not possible to be automated and tedious to add and frequently changes.
Thanks for the feedback.