# API reference documentation ## TL;DR: validate and test your local `influxdata/openapi` changes 1. After you've edited `influxdata/openapi` definitions, you need to generate and validate contracts and test the API reference docs. To create a shell alias that does this, open your `~/.profile` in an editor and add the following commands to the file: ```sh export DOCS="$HOME/github/docs-v2" alias gsd="cd $HOME/github/openapi && make generate-all && \ npx oats ./contracts/ref/cloud.yml && npx oats ./contracts/ref/oss.yml && \ cd $DOCS/api-docs && ./getswagger.sh all -b file:///$HOME/github/openapi && \ sh ./generate-api-docs.sh" ``` 2. To refresh your environment with the `~/.profile` changes, enter the following command into your terminal: ```sh source ~/.profile ``` 3. To run the alias, enter the following command into your terminal: ```sh gsd ``` `gsd` generates the local contracts in `~/github/openapi`, validates them with OATS, bundles and lints them with `@redocly/cli`, and then generates the HTML with `@redocly/cli`. ## Update API docs for InfluxDB Cloud 1. In your `docs-v2` directory, create a branch for your changes--for example: ```sh cd ~/github/docs-v2 git fetch -ap git checkout -b release/api-cloud origin/master ``` 2. Enter the following commands into your terminal to fetch and process the contracts: ```sh # In your terminal, go to the `docs-v2/api-docs` directory: cd ./api-docs # Fetch the contracts, apply customizations, and bundle. sh getswagger.sh cloud ``` 3. To generate the HTML files for local testing, follow the instructions to [generate API docs locally](#generate-api-docs-locally). 4. To commit your updated spec files, push your branch to `influxdata/docs-v2`, and create a PR against the `master` branch. ## Update API docs for an InfluxDB OSS release 1. Go into your local `influxdata/openapi` repo directory--for example: ```sh cd ~/github/openapi ``` 2. Get the SHA for the release commit (or consult Team-Edge if you're not sure)--for example, enter the following command into your terminal to get the latest SHA for `contracts/ref/oss.yml` : ```sh git log -n 1 --pretty=format:%h -- contracts/ref/oss.yml ``` 3. Copy the SHA from the output and create a git tag by running the following command, replacing **`[SEMANTIC_VERSION]`** with the OSS release (for example, `2.3.0`) and **`COMMIT_SHA`** with the SHA from step 2: ```sh git tag influxdb-oss-v[SEMANTIC_VERSION] COMMIT_SHA ``` 4. Enter the following commands into your terminal to push the new tag to the repo: ```sh git push --tags ``` 5. Enter the following commands into your terminal to update `docs-release/influxdb-oss` branch to the OSS release commit and rebase the branch to the [latest release of InfluxDB OSS](#how-to-find-the-api-spec-used-by-an-influxdb-oss-version), replacing **`OSS_RELEASE_TAG`** with the SHA from step 3. ```sh git checkout docs-release/influxdb-oss git rebase -i OSS_RELEASE_TAG git push -f origin docs-release/influxdb-oss ``` 6. Go into your `docs-v2` directory and create a branch for your changes--for example: ```sh cd ~/github/docs-v2 git fetch -ap git checkout -b release/api-oss origin/master ``` 7. In `./api-docs`, copy the previous version or create a directory for the new OSS version number--for example: ```sh # In your terminal, go to the `docs-v2/api-docs` directory: cd ./api-docs ``` If the old version directory contains custom content files (for example, v2.2/content), you'll likely want to copy those for the new version. ```sh # Copy the old version directory to a directory for the new version: cp -r v2.2 v2.3 ``` 8. In your editor, update custom content files in NEW\_VERSION/content. 9. Enter the following commands into your terminal to fetch and process the contracts: ```sh # Fetch the contracts, apply customizations, and bundle. sh getswagger.sh oss ``` 10. To generate the HTML files for local testing, follow the instructions to [generate API docs locally](#generate-api-docs-locally). 11. To commit your updated spec files, push your branch to `influxdata/docs-v2`, and create a PR against the `master` branch. ## Update API docs for OSS spec changes between releases Follow these steps to update OSS API docs between version releases--for example, after revising description fields in `influxdata/openapi`. 1. Go into your local `influxdata/openapi` repo directory--for example: ```sh cd ~/github/openapi ``` 2. Enter the following commands into your terminal to checkout `docs-release/influxdb-oss` branch: ```sh git fetch -ap git checkout -t docs-release/influxdb-oss ``` 3. Cherry-pick the commits with the updated description fields, and push the commits to the remote branch, replacing **`[COMMIT_SHAs]`** (one or more commit SHAs (space-separated))--for example: ```sh git cherry-pick [COMMIT_SHAs] git push -f origin docs-release/influxdb-oss ``` 4. Go into your `docs-v2` directory and create a branch for your changes--for example: ```sh cd ~/github/docs-v2 git fetch -ap git checkout -b docs/api-oss origin/master ``` 5. Go into `./api-docs` directory--for example: ```sh # In your terminal, go to the `docs-v2/api-docs` directory: cd ./api-docs ``` 6. Enter the following commands into your terminal to fetch and process the contracts: ```sh # Fetch the contracts, apply customizations, and bundle. sh getswagger.sh oss ``` 7. To generate the HTML files for local testing, follow the instructions to [generate API docs locally](#generate-api-docs-locally). 8. To commit your updated spec files, push your branch to `influxdata/docs-v2`, and create a PR against the `master` branch. ## Generate InfluxDB API docs InfluxData uses [Redoc](https://github.com/Redocly/redoc/), [redoc-cli](https://github.com/Redocly/redoc/blob/master/cli/README.md), and Redocly's [OpenApi CLI](https://redoc.ly/docs/cli/) to generate API documentation from the [InfluxDB OpenAPI (aka Swagger) contracts](https://github.com/influxdata/openapi). To minimize the size of the `docs-v2` repository, the generated API documentation HTML is gitignored, therefore not committed to the docs repo. The InfluxDB docs deployment process uses OpenAPI specification files in the `api-docs` directory to generate version-specific (Cloud, OSS v2.1, OSS v2.0, etc.) API documentation. ### Generate API docs locally Because the API documentation HTML is gitignored, you must manually generate it to view the API docs locally. The `./generate.sh` script uses the Redoc CLI to generate Redocly HTML, Javascript, and CSS for each version of the InfluxDB spec. The script uses `npx` to download and execute the Redocly CLI. 1. Verify that you have a working `npx` (it's included with Node.js). In your terminal, run: ```sh npx --version ``` If `npx` returns errors, [download](https://nodejs.org/en/) and run a recent version of the Node.js installer for your OS. 2. To generate API docs for *all* InfluxDB versions in `./openapi`, enter the following command into your terminal: ```sh sh generate-api-docs.sh ``` To save time testing your spec changes, you can pass the `-c` flag to regenerate HTML for only the OpenAPI files that differ from your `master` branch. ```sh sh generate-api-docs.sh -c ``` ## How we version OpenAPI contracts The `api-docs` directory structure versions OpenAPI files using the following pattern: ```md api-docs/ |-- cloud/ │ └── ref.yml │ └── swaggerV1Compat.yml ├── v2.0/ │ └── ref.yml │ └── swaggerV1Compat.yml ├── v2.1/ │ └── ref.yml │ └── swaggerV1Compat.yml ├── v2.2/ │ └── ref.yml │ └── swaggerV1Compat.yml └── etc... ``` ### InfluxDB Cloud version InfluxDB Cloud releases are frequent and not versioned, so the Cloud API spec isn't versioned. We regenerate API reference docs from `influxdata/openapi` **master** branch as features are released. ### InfluxDB OSS v2 version Given that `influxdata/openapi` **master** may contain OSS spec changes not implemented in the current OSS release, we (Docs team) maintain a release branch, `influxdata/openapi` **docs-release/influxdb-oss**, used to generate OSS reference docs. ### How to find the API spec used by an InfluxDB OSS version `influxdata/openapi` does not version the InfluxData API. To find the `influxdata/openapi` commit SHA used in a specific version of InfluxDB OSS, see `/scripts/fetch-swagger.sh` in `influxdata/influxdb`--for example, for the `influxdata/openapi` commit used in OSS v2.2.0, see . For convenience, we tag `influxdata/influxdb` (OSS) release points in `influxdata/openapi` as `influxdb-oss-v[OSS_VERSION]`. See . ## How to use custom OpenAPI spec processing Generally, you should manage API content in `influxdata/openapi`. In some cases, however, you may want custom processing (e.g. collecting all Tags) or additional content (e.g. describing the reference documentation) specifically for the docs. When you run `getswagger.sh`, it executes `@redocly/openapi-cli` and the plugins listed in `.redocly.yaml`. [`./openapi/plugins`](./openapi/plugins) use [`./openapi/plugins/decorators`](./openapi/plugins/decorators) to apply custom processing to OpenAPI specs. `.yml` files in [`./PLATFORM/content`](./openapi/content) define custom content for OpenAPI nodes published in the reference docs. To update the content for those nodes, you only need to update the YAML files. For example, to customize the Info section for the Cloud API reference, edit `./cloud/content/info.yml`. To add new YAML files for other nodes in the contracts, follow these steps: 1. Create your new content file with valid OAS content structure and Markdown. 2. Configure the new content YAML file in [`./openapi/content/content.js`](./openapi/content/content.js). 3. Write or update a decorator module for the node and configure the decorator in [`./openapi/plugins/docs-plugin.js`](`./openapi/plugins/docs-plugin.js). See the [complete list of OAS v3.0 nodes](https://github.com/Redocly/openapi-cli/blob/master/packages/core/src/types/oas3.ts#L529). `@redocly/cli` requires that modules use CommonJS `require` syntax for imports. `@redocly/cli` also provides some [built-in decorators](https://redocly.com/docs/cli/decorators/) that you can configure in `.redocly` without having to write JavaScript. ### How to add tag content or describe a group of paths Each product has a `tags.yml` file colocated with its spec that configures tag names, descriptions, vendor extensions, and related links. The `post-process-specs.ts` script applies these configs to the bundled spec before article generation. #### Tag config format (`tags.yml`) ```yaml tags: # Operation-backed tag — groups API endpoints Write data: description: > Write time series data to InfluxDB 3 Core in line protocol format using the v1, v2, or v3 write endpoints. x-related: - title: Write data using HTTP APIs href: /influxdb3/core/write-data/http-api/ - title: Line protocol reference href: /influxdb3/core/reference/syntax/line-protocol/ # Trait tag — supplementary documentation, no operations Quick start: x-traitTag: true description: > Get started authenticating, writing, and querying data with the InfluxDB 3 Core API. # Rename a tag from the upstream spec Cache data: rename: Cache distinct values description: > Query cached distinct values. ``` #### Field reference | Field | Type | Description | | ------------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | `description` | string | Tag description rendered in the API reference. Use `>` (folded scalar) for prose, `\|` (literal scalar) for multiline markdown with links or HTML. | | `x-traitTag` | boolean | When `true`, marks the tag as supplementary documentation — it appears in the sidebar but has no associated operations. Use for tags like Authentication, Quick start, Headers, and API compatibility. | | `x-related` | list | Related documentation links rendered below the tag description. Each item has `title` (link text) and `href` (URL path or full URL). | | `rename` | string | Renames the tag in both `tags[]` and all `operation.tags[]` references. Use when the upstream tag name is too generic or doesn't match docs conventions. | #### Tag categories **Operation-backed tags** group API endpoints. Every operation in the spec has a `tags[]` array; each unique tag name becomes a navigation section. These tags need a `description` and usually `x-related` links. **Trait tags** (`x-traitTag: true`) are supplementary documentation sections with no operations. They appear in the sidebar as standalone content pages. Common trait tags: Authentication, Quick start, Headers, API compatibility, Common parameters, Response codes, Pagination. #### One tag per operation Assign exactly **one tag** per operation. Most API documentation UIs don't handle multi-tagged operations well — the operation appears in multiple navigation sections, which is confusing. Use `x-compatibility-version` instead of a second tag to mark compatibility endpoints. The build pipeline extracts this vendor extension and renders version badges in the UI. ```yaml # Correct — single tag + compatibility marker /api/v2/write: post: summary: Write data (v2 compatible) x-compatibility-version: v2 tags: - Write # Wrong — dual-tagged, appears under both Write and v2 Compatibility /api/v2/write: post: summary: Write data (v2 compatible) tags: - v2 Compatibility - Write ``` For operations that belong purely to a compatibility layer (e.g., `/api/v2/buckets` in a v1 product — no equivalent in the native API), use the compatibility tag as the single tag: ```yaml /api/v2/buckets: get: summary: List buckets (v2 compatible) x-compatibility-version: v2 tags: - v2 Compatibility ``` **`x-compatibility-version` values:** `v1`, `v2`, or `v3`. The build pipeline (`openapi-paths-to-hugo-data/index.ts`) extracts this into `compatVersion` in the article frontmatter, which templates use to render version badges. **Authentication tags** are a special case — they use `|` (literal scalar) for the description because they contain a markdown list and ``, which renders the API's security scheme definitions inline. Security scheme anchor names vary by product: | Product family | Scheme anchors | | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | v3 (Core, Enterprise, Dedicated, Serverless, Clustered) | `TokenAuthentication`, `BearerAuthentication`, `BasicAuthentication`, `QuerystringAuthentication` | | v2 (Cloud, OSS v2) | `TokenAuthentication`, `BasicAuthentication`, `QuerystringAuthentication` | | v1 (OSS v1, Enterprise v1) | `BasicAuth`, `QueryAuth`, `TokenAuth` | #### Writing tag descriptions - Start with a verb phrase describing what the endpoints do (e.g., "Create and manage...", "Write time series data...", "Query data...") - Include the full product name on first reference (e.g., "InfluxDB 3 Core", "InfluxDB Cloud", "InfluxDB Enterprise v1") - Keep descriptions to 2-3 lines (folded scalar `>` handles wrapping) - Don't include documentation links in descriptions — use `x-related` instead - For management API tags, don't repeat links that are in the main product's data API tags #### Content overlay discovery The post-processor looks for content files in two locations, in order: 1. **Spec directory**: `{specDir}/content/{file}` (e.g., `influxdb3/core/content/info.yml`) 2. **Product directory fallback**: `{productDir}/content/{file}` (e.g., `influxdb3/core/content/info.yml`) For products with multiple APIs (e.g., Cloud Dedicated has both data and management APIs), the spec-specific directory takes precedence. | Overlay | Behavior | | ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `info.yml` | Merges each field into `spec.info`, preserving fields not in the overlay | | `servers.yml` | Replaces `spec.servers` entirely | | `tags.yml` | Colocated with spec (not in `content/`). Renames tags, sets descriptions and `x-related` | #### Reviewing tags across products When editing tags, check consistency across related products: - **Core and Enterprise** share the same spec structure — their tags should use parallel descriptions (swap product name only) - **Cloud Dedicated and Clustered** share management API tags — keep descriptions and `x-related` links parallel - **Cloud v2 and OSS v2** share most tags — Cloud omits a few OSS-only tags (Backup, Restore, Scraper Targets) and adds Cloud-only tags (Limits, Usage, Invokable Scripts) - **OSS v1 and Enterprise v1** are similar — Enterprise adds the `consistency` parameter note in Write and cluster-specific language ## Documentation links in OpenAPI specs Use the `/influxdb/version/` placeholder when including InfluxDB links in OpenAPI spec description and summary fields. The build process automatically transforms these placeholders to product-specific paths based on the spec file location. ### Writing links ```yaml # In api-docs/influxdb3/core/openapi/ref.yml info: description: | See [authentication](/influxdb/version/api/authentication/) for details. Related: [tokens](/influxdb/version/admin/tokens/) ``` After build, these become: - `/influxdb3/core/api/authentication/` - `/influxdb3/core/admin/tokens/` ### How it works The product path is derived from the spec file location: - `api-docs/influxdb3/core/...` → `/influxdb3/core` - `api-docs/influxdb3/enterprise/...` → `/influxdb3/enterprise` - `api-docs/influxdb/v2/...` → `/influxdb/v2` Only `description` and `summary` fields are transformed. Explicit cross-product links (e.g., `/telegraf/v1/plugins/`) remain unchanged. ### Link validation Run with the `--validate-links` flag to check for broken links: ```bash yarn build:api-docs --validate-links ``` This validates that transformed links point to existing Hugo content files and warns about any broken links. ## How to test your spec or API reference changes You can use `getswagger.sh` to fetch contracts from any URL. For example, if you've made changes to spec files and generated new contracts in your local `openapi` repo, run `getswagger.sh` to fetch and process them. To fetch contracts from your own `openapi` repo, pass the `-b` `base_url` option and the full path to your `openapi` directory. ```sh # Use the file:/// protocol to pass your openapi directory. sh getswagger.sh oss -b file:///Users/me/github/openapi ``` After you fetch them, run the linter or generate HTML to test your changes before you commit them to `influxdata/openapi`. By default, `getswagger.sh` doesn't run the linter when bundling the specs. Manually run the [linter rules](https://redoc.ly/docs/cli/resources/built-in-rules/) to get a report of errors and warnings. ```sh npx @redocly/openapi-cli lint v2.1/ref.yml ``` ### Configure OpenAPI CLI linting and bundling The `.redoc.yaml` configuration file sets options for the `@redocly/openapi-cli` [`lint`](https://redoc.ly/docs/cli/commands/lint/) and [`bundle`](https://redoc.ly/docs/cli/commands/bundle/) commands. `./openapi/plugins` contains custom InfluxData Docs plugins composed of *rules* (for validating and linting) and *decorators* (for customizing). For more configuration options, see `@redocly/openapi-cli` [configuration file documentation](https://redoc.ly/docs/cli/configuration/configuration-file/).