Open APIs

One challenge with standardised implementations like the OpenAPI specification can be the complexity of the standard, which can lead to engineers, at varying levels adhering to some aspects of the standard and not to others, ultimately leading to a partial and inconsistent implementation of the standard, much like the current XHTML standard (although this has vastly improved over the years since its adoption). Should the OAI provide a standardised validating parser that engineers can run to measure their API's against and much like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a feedback mechanism in the form of a level of adherence to the specification?

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Barbara Marino
Active Ticketing PLC
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Hi,

"Should the OAI provide a standardised validating parser that engineers can run to measure their API's against and much like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a feedback mechanism in the form of a level of adherence to the specification?"

Yes - we do have some assets that can help with this. Each TMF Open-API includes:

• The human-readable "specification" document
• The machine readable Swagger/OAS file
• A "Conformance Profile" - describing which of the attributes/relationships in the spec are considered mandatory or optional, and/or any mutual exclusivity between them.
• Increasingly we are trying to provide a very basic "reference implementation" allowing you to GET/POST resources and their collections

..and finally a "Conformance Test Kit" or "CTK". This is written as a Postman Collection: A script that creates predefined HTTP requests and tests the results (payloads and/or error messages). The CTK is written to reflect the specification and conformance profile. If the endpoint passes the tests, it could be said to be a compliant implementation.

If you have implemented a TMF Open-API, you should be able to run the CTK against your implementation. If it passes, you should be able to say that your implementation is TM Forum compliant.

Steve

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Stephen Harrop
Vodafone Group
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-11-2017 10:26
From: Barbara Marino
Subject: Open API Standard

One challenge with standardised implementations like the OpenAPI specification can be the complexity of the standard, which can lead to engineers, at varying levels adhering to some aspects of the standard and not to others, ultimately leading to a partial and inconsistent implementation of the standard, much like the current XHTML standard (although this has vastly improved over the years since its adoption). Should the OAI provide a standardised validating parser that engineers can run to measure their API's against and much like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a feedback mechanism in the form of a level of adherence to the specification?

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Barbara Marino
Active Ticketing PLC
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