API Builder

2 minute read

Overview

In API Builder, you can create your independent services for containerization and deployment on your container platform of choice.

API Builder lets you build and deploy a project that is comprised of API endpoints that can be consumed by any client application. An API Builder project is a Node.js application that runs as a service and is comprised of several components. You can then develop your service within a browser through a powerful UI.

To get started, see the Getting Started With API Builder.

API Builder offers:

• Low code/no code approach
• Based on standards (OpenAPI, Node.js, npm, JavaScript, JSON, JSON schema)
• Optimized for use in containers
• Pub-sub connectivity
• A wide range of plugins
• Easily expandable using the available API Builder SDK
• REST development
• API-first development

Flows

Flows are at the core of API Builder and are used to implement the business logic of your service, and are developed graphically in the browser.

Plugins

API Builder aims to be as light weight as possible, so while the core product contains basic capabilities, it can be extended using plugins to support additional services and standards required by your service.

You can even create custom flow-node plugins using the API Builder SDK.

Plugins are installed as node modules and are easily shared with other developers in the API Builder community using npm.

API-first development

In the API-first approach, you import an OpenAPI specification which defines the service you want to implement. This provides API Builder with the interface of your service, such as the paths, input parameters and outputs. You can then implement your service using flows.

Learn more about API-first with OpenAPI.

Event-driven services

API Builder allows you to create more than just REST APIs: Using available flow-trigger plugins, you can build flows which are executed by events such as on a schedule, or through a subscription to pub-sub service like Apache Kafka.

Database connectivity

Database connector plugins provide connectivity to a range of popular data sources such as MySQL. By configuring a connector, this allows API Builder to automatically create data models for accessible tables which describe the fields and their types, as well as providing read and write operations for manipulating records.

Using models, API Builder can automatically expose simple and dynamic CRUD API for your database in minutes. Additionally, you can use models within flows to integrate with other development approaches and give more fine-grained control over your database interactions.