What is Spectral (Stoplight)?
Spectral is an open-source API style guide enforcer and linter. It uses rules to target API descriptions for quality improvement and enforces API Style Guide rules, such as naming conventions for OpenAPI models or prohibiting integers in URLs.
Why use it in the API Lifecycle?
- Generic Ruleset Engine: Applies rules to JSON or YAML data, with specific support for OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, and JSON Schema.
- API Style Guide Enforcement: Enforces API style guide rules, including naming conventions for models or restricting data types in URLs.
- Customizable Rulesets: Allows users to utilize default rulesets, extend them, or create custom rulesets for organizational API style guides.
- Multiple Deployment Options: Available as a CLI binary for macOS, Linux, and Windows, and as an NPM/Yarn package with a CLI and JavaScript API.
- Stoplight Platform Integration: Integrates with Stoplight Platform to provide real-time feedback during API design and editing.
- Shareable Style Guide Projects: Enables teams to share style guides and automatically generate documentation within Stoplight Platform.
Best Practices
- Automate API style guide enforcement to ensure consistency across APIs.
- Create or extend rulesets to specifically match an organization’s unique API style guide requirements.
- Integrate Spectral into continuous integration (CI) pipelines to automate style guide checks.
- Utilize visual editors, such as Stoplight Platform, to receive real-time feedback during API description authoring.
