Phase 05Designing an API someone else has to use253 of 434
Documentation that stays true
Generated from the schema you already wrote, or it will be wrong within a fortnight.
Concept11 minAI implements
Documentation written by hand in a separate file describes the API as it was on the day someone cared. Documentation generated from the validation schemas describes the API as it is, because the schemas are load-bearing and cannot silently drift. Both Zod and Pydantic emit OpenAPI with modest effort, and FastAPI does it without being asked.
What generation cannot give you is intent. A field list is not documentation; it is a field list. Add, per endpoint, one sentence on what it is for, one on who is allowed to call it, and one worked example of a failure. That is fifteen minutes per endpoint and it is the part people actually read.
You should now be able to
- Produce API documentation from a single source of truth
- Explain why hand-written endpoint docs decay
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