Apigee SmartDocs Provides Developers Method level API Documentation

Friday, May 9, 2014

Apigee, which provides API management solutions, has introduced SmartDocs, a method-level API documentation that offers both internal and external SEO benefits.

API providers can generate docs by leveraging handlebars-driven templates, test the accuracy of their documentation with live requests, and control the layout, interactions, and look of docs. App developers can make API requests without leaving the page, work faster as SmartDocs learns the parameter values developers like to use, and benefit from accurate, model-driven documentation.

SmartDocs features include:

Method-level detail: Every method of an API gets its own page of documentation. This gives space to describe the behavior of that method in detail. Not only does that help provide necessary information to developers, the documentation itself is indexed, which brings SEO benefits to internal (portal) search results as well as external search results.

Interactive requests: Developers can send requests without leaving docs. SmartDocs guides developers to build well-formed requests and to sign them with their credentials. This helps minimize a crucial adoption metric - time to first request. And because writers can test their work in-situ, it should improve the accuracy of documentation.

Docs that learn: SmartDocs remembers the values that each developer uses for subsequent requests. This makes SmartDocs a tool that gets better the more it is used and it helps developers move faster.

Easy to maintain: Developers have complete control over the layout, interactions, and look and feel. Plus, in-line editing allows the ability to change what is see, right from the generated docs.

To learn more, Apigee provides SmartDocs introduction documentation. SmartDocs (in beta) supports OAuth 2.0's webserver flow, custom token authentication (API keys), and HTTP basic authentication. With a developer portal and an existing description of services in Swagger or WADL (as used by Apigee API consoles) format, SmartDocs can be published in as little as 10-15 minutes.