{"id":24092,"date":"2022-12-09T10:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-12-09T15:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.logrocket.com\/?p=24092"},"modified":"2024-06-04T17:02:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T21:02:19","slug":"documenting-express-js-api-swagger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.logrocket.com\/documenting-express-js-api-swagger\/","title":{"rendered":"Documenting your Express API with Swagger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong> This post on documenting an Express.js API with Swagger was last updated on 9 December 2022 to add sections on how to connect Swagger to Node.js, the benefits of Swagger, and how to use CSS to customize Swagger. This update also addresses errors in the code present in the previous version. <\/em><\/p>\"Documenting\n

We all know about the importance of documenting your APIs. In terms of Node.js APIs, whether they were built on top of Express.js or any other framework, you\u2019ve got plenty of open source options. These include apiDoc, docbox, and others.<\/p>\n

In this tutorial, we will explore using Swagger with an Express.js API. Swagger is an open source set of tools that enable you to design, build, document, and use RESTful web services<\/a>. It was created to be mostly agnostic<\/a>, meaning you can use it with pretty much any of your favorite languages and frameworks.<\/p>\n

In our example, we\u2019ll use two libraries: swagger-ui-express and swagger-jsdoc. The first is a module that allows you to feed a Swagger UI (auto-generated views based on the swagger-ui project) from a swagger.json<\/code> file or an inline object.<\/p>\n

The second project is about integrating Swagger using JSDoc comments throughout your code. This is useful, especially when you have extensive APIs and dozens of models.<\/p>\n

Jump ahead:<\/em><\/p>\n