Internet-Draft | api-catalog | July 2023 |
Smith | Expires 25 January 2024 | [Page] |
- Workgroup:
- Internet Engineering Task Force
- Internet-Draft:
- draft-smith-api-catalog-03
- Published:
- Intended Status:
- Standards Track
- Expires:
api-catalog: A well-known URI to help discovery of APIs
Abstract
This document defines the "api-catalog" well-known URI. It is intended to facilitate discovery of the APIs published by a Web host.¶
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 25 January 2024.¶
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
1. Introduction
A Web host may publish Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to encourage requests for interaction from external parties. Such APIs must be discovered before they may be used - i.e., the external party needs to know what APIs a given Web host exposes, including their purpose, any policies for usage, and the endpoints to interact with the APIs. To faciliate discovery of this information, this document proposes a well-known URI, 'api-catalog', as a location where a Web host's API endpoints are listed and described.¶
1.1. Goals and non-goals
The primary goal is to facilitate the discovery of a Web Host's public API endpoints, along with metadata that describes the purpose and usage of each API. The api-catalog is primarily machine-readable to enable automated discovery and usage of APIs. The api-catalog may also include links to human-readable documentation.¶
Non-goals: this document does not mandate paths for API endpoints. i.e., it does not mandate that my_example_api should be available at example.com/.well-known/api-catalog/my_example_api (although it is not forbidden to do so).¶
1.2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
2. Using the 'api-catalog' well-known URI
The api-catalog well-known URI is intended for HTTP(S) servers that publish APIs and wish to facilitate their discovery and usage. Since the purpose of the api-catalog well-known URI is to facilitate API discovery with minimal prior knowledge, it is recommended that /.well-known/api-catalog be hosted at a predictable hostname, e.g. www.example.com . It may also be hosted at other hostnames, e.g. api.example.com, developer.example.com etc.¶
A Web host (example.com) supporting this URI:¶
- SHALL resolve an HTTP(S) GET request to /.well-known/api-catalog and return an api-catalog linkset as defined in this document¶
- SHOULD resolve an HTTP(S) HEAD request to /.well-known/api-catalog with a response including a Link header with the relation(s) defined in Section 3 (Editor's note: TODO, add a section for this).¶
3. Link relations
"api-catalog" . Links to an api-catalog as defined in this document.¶
"service-desc" . Defined in [RFC8615], used to link to a description of the API that is primarily intended for machine consumption.¶
"service-doc" . Defined in [RFC8615], used to link to API documentation that is primarily intended for human consumption.¶
"service-meta" . Defined in [RFC8615], used to link to additional metadata about the API, and is primarily intended for machine consumption.¶
"status" . Defined in [RFC8615], used to link to the API status (e.g. API "health" indication etc.) for machine and/or human consumption.¶
4. Associated Media type: the api-catalog linkset
A GET request to the api-catalog well-known URI SHALL return a linkset [RFC9264] containing an array of linkset context objects. Each linkset context object MUST include an anchor with a URI reference for an API endpoint, and a "service-desc" link relation. The link relations for "status", "service-doc", "service-meta" MAY be included.¶
Example request:¶
GET .well-know/api-catalog HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com Accept: application/linkset+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:01 GMT Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1 Content-Type: application/linkset+json { "linkset": [ { "anchor": "https://developer.example.com/apis/foo_api", "service-desc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/foo_api/spec", "type": "text/n3" } ], "status": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/foo_api/status", "type": "application/json" } ], "service-doc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/foo_api/doc", "type": "text/html" } ], "service-meta": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/foo_api/policies", "type": "text/xml" } ] }, { "anchor": "https://developer.example.com/apis/bar_api", "service-desc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/bar_api/spec", "type": "application/json" } ], "status": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/bar_api/status", "type": "application/json" } ], "service-doc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/bar_api/doc", "type": "text/plain" } ] }, { "anchor": "https://developer.example.com/apis/cantona_api", "service-desc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/cantona_api/spec", "type": "text/n3" } ], "service-doc": [ { "href": "https://developer.example.com/apis/cantona_api/doc", "type": "text/html" } ] } ] }
5. Conformance to RFC8615
The requirements in section 3 of [RFC8615] for defining Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers are met as follows:¶
5.1. Path prefix
The api-catalog URI SHALL be appended to the /.well-known/ path-prefix for "well-known locations".¶
5.2. Supported URI schemes
The api-catalog well-known URI may be used with the HTTP and HTTPS URI schemes.¶
5.3. Registration of the api-catalog well-known URI
6. IANA Considerations
6.1. The api-catalog well-known URI
This specification registers the "api-catalog" well-known URI in the Well-Known URI Registry as defined by [RFC6415] .¶
URI suffix: api-catalog¶
Specification document(s): draft-smith-api-catalog-03¶
Related information: The "api-catalog" documents obtained from the same host using the HTTP and HTTPS protocols (using default ports) MUST be identical.¶
6.2. The api-catalog link relation
This specification registers the "api-catalog" link relation by following the procedures per section 4.2.2 of [RFC8288] (Editor's note: IANA registrations are TODO).¶
Relation Name: api-catalog¶
Description: Identifies a catalog of APIs published by the context Web host.¶
Reference: draft-smith-api-catalog-03¶
8. References
8.1. Normative References
- [RFC6415]
- Hammer-Lahav, E., Ed. and B. Cook, "Web Host Metadata", RFC 6415, DOI 10.17487/RFC6415, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6415>.
- [RFC8288]
- Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 8288, DOI 10.17487/RFC8288, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8288>.
- [RFC8615]
- Nottingham, M., "Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)", RFC 8615, DOI 10.17487/RFC8615, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8615>.
- [RFC9264]
- Wilde, E. and H. Van de Sompel, "Linkset: Media Types and a Link Relation Type for Link Sets", RFC 9264, DOI 10.17487/RFC9264, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9264>.
- [RFC8631]
- Wilde, E., "Link Relation Types for Web Services", RFC 8631, DOI 10.17487/RFC8631, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8631>.
8.2. Informative References
- [RFC2119]
- Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
Acknowledgements
TODO¶