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Updated Stoplight tutorial

by Tom Johnson on Apr 12, 2021
categories: api-doc api-doc-site-updates

I updated (almost entirely rewrote) the tutorial for using Stoplight Studio. This is one of the centerpieces in my API doc course because it provides an easy way to create an OpenAPI specification document, without having to be familiar with the OpenAPI syntax or YAML.

You can view the tutorial here: Getting started tutorial: Using Stoplight Studio to create an OpenAPI specification document. This update is basically an entire rewrite of the previous material because of the number of changes in Stoplight since the initial version of my tutorial.

In making these updates, I’m really impressed by how far the Stoplight Studio editor has come. A long time ago, I chose this editor as the visual approach to working with the OpenAPI spec. Previously, every time I’d tried to get people working directly in the OpenAPI specification code (with no visual editor), the tricky syntax and fussy YAML rules always tripped people up. Also, I don’t work enough with REST APIs to have all of the OpenAPI properties memorized, so using a visual editor is a great way to focus on the content instead of the syntax.

Note that Stoplight is one of the sponsor of my site.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

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