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by wackget 969 days ago
The description doesn't explain exactly what this extension does.

I assume it monitors all XHR requests as you browse a website, and if the request/response matches [some criteria (e.g. is JSON?)] it will assume it's an API request and log it?

Is that correct?

If so, it will only work on websites where the frontend is implemented like a PWA, with lots of AJAX calls to fetch data, etc. For sites whose pages are all generated server-side, the extension won't generate any API schema, right?

Edit: Also how does it differentiate "API requests" with regular AJAX content fetching? If a website fetches some arbitrary content via an AJAX request (e.g. some lazy-loaded HTML), that's not an API request. That's just part of a website's layout.
4 comments
iforgotpassword 969 days ago
How would it, there isn't any API in the first place with classic websites. Your could maybe consider the urlencoded post requests an API, but then the reply is another html website so how do you formally specify the reply format? "The queried data is somewhere right below the third <h3> except when there's a new message for the logged in user, then it's the fourth one"
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jameshart 969 days ago
Obviously - a browser extension can only monitor API calls from the browser.
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wackget 969 days ago
Not obviously; all it says is it generates a schema "while using" a website.

"Using" could mean navigating between pages, submitting data via forms, etc.

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yencabulator 969 days ago
Worse, for something like SvelteKit load functions, this will think there's a "real API" where what's actually there is an internal detail and will change often.

https://kit.svelte.dev/docs/load

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a_c 969 days ago
It does generate schema.

> Instantly generate an OpenAPI 3.1 specification for any website or application just by using it

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wackget 969 days ago
Yeah but my question remains: by what criteria is a request classed as an "API request"? Websites make tons of XHR requests and not all of them are API requests.

I want to know what this extension does that's different than me looking at the browser's Dev Tools > Network tab.

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mrmagoo2 969 days ago
The criteria can be found below. There are no hard and fast rules, but the goal is to only include requests that you might otherwise find in a spec.

https://github.com/AndrewWalsh/openapi-devtools/blob/main/sr...

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