protoc-gen-connect-openapi

Generate OpenAPI v3.1 from protobuf matching the Connect protocol. With these OpenAPI specs, you can:

• Generate Documentation (Elements, redoc, etc.)
• Generate HTTP Clients for places where you cannot use gRPC (openapi-generator)
• Datasource for automated endpoint validation/security testing
• Datasource for monitoring dashboards
• Many other things

Features:

• Support for OpenAPIv3.1 (which has support for jsonschema)
• Support for many protovalidate options (more info)
• Support for many OpenAPIv3 options from the google/gnostic project protobufs (more info)
• Support for gRPC-Gateway annotations (more info)
• Has an easy interface for generating OpenAPI specs within the process

Example Pipeline:

• Protobuf file: example
• OpenAPI file: example
• Generate documentation: redocly example

flowchart LR

protobuf(Protobuf) -->|protoc-gen-connect-openapi| openapi(OpenAPI)
openapi -->|elements| elements(API Documentation)
openapi -->|openapi-generator| other-languages(Other Language Support)
openapi -->|???| ???(Other Tooling!)
click elements "https://github.com/stoplightio/elements" _blank
click openapi-generator "https://github.com/OpenAPITools/openapi-generator" _blank

Why?

Connect makes your gRPC service look and feel like a normal HTTP/JSON API, at least for non-streaming RPC calls. It does this without an extra network hop and an extra proxy layer because the same Connect server can speak the Connect, gRPC and gRPC-Web protocols in a single port.

This is what a GET request looks like. Note that GET requests are available for methods with an option of idempotency_level=NO_SIDE_EFFECTS.

> GET /connectrpc.greet.v1.GreetService/Greet?encoding=json&message=%7B%22name%22%3A%22Buf%22%7D HTTP/1.1
> Host: demo.connectrpc.com

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Content-Type: application/json
<
< {"greeting": "Hello, Buf!"}

We can document this API as if it's a real JSON/HTTP API... because it is, and the gRPC "flavor" isn't so noticable due to Connect. With protoc-gen-connect-openapi you can declare your API using protobuf, serve it using gRPC and Connect and fully document it without the API consumers ever knowing what protobuf is or how to read it.

Install

go install github.com/sudorandom/protoc-gen-connect-openapi@main

or you can download pre-built binaries from the Github releases page.

Usage

With protoc

This tool works as a plugin for protoc. Here's a basic example:

protoc internal/converter/fixtures/helloworld.proto --connect-openapi_out=gen

With the JSON format:

protoc internal/converter/fixtures/helloworld.proto \
    --connect-openapi_out=gen \
--connect-openapi_opt=format=json

With a base OpenAPI file and without all of the streaming content type:

protoc internal/converter/fixtures/helloworld.proto \
    --connect-openapi_out=gen \
    --connect-openapi_opt=base=example.base.yaml,content-types=json

See protoc --help for more protoc options.

Using buf

With buf you can make a buf.gen.yaml with your options, like this:

version: v2
plugins:
  - local: protoc-gen-connect-openapi
    out: out
    opt:
    - base=example.base.yaml

And then run buf generate. See the documentation on buf generate for more help.

Proto Validate Support

protoc-gen-connect-openapi also has support for many protovalidate annotations. Note that not every protovalidate constraint translates clearly to OpenAPI.

See the protovalidate documentation page for more information

gRPC-Gateway annotations

protoc-gen-connect-openapi also has support for the gRPC-Gateway annotations provided by the google/api/annotations.proto.

See the gRPC-Gateway annotation documentation page for more information

Gnostic Support

protoc-gen-connect-openapi also has support for the OpenAPI v3 annotations provided by the google/gnostic project.

See the gnostic documentation page for more information

Options

Option	Values	Description
allow-get	-	For methods that have IdempotencyLevel=IDEMPOTENT, this option will generate HTTP GET requests instead of POST.
base	{filepath}	The path to a base OpenAPI file to populate fields that this tool doesn't populate.
content-types	json;proto	Semicolon-separated content types to generate requests/repsonses
debug	-	Emit debug logs
format	yaml or json	Which format to use for the OpenAPI file, defaults to yaml.
include-number-enum-values	-	Include number enum values beside the string versions, defaults to only showing strings
path	{filepath}	Output filepath, defaults to per-protofile output if not given.
proto	-	Generate requests/repsonses with the protobuf content type
trim-unused-types	-	Remove types that aren't references from any method request or response.
with-proto-annotations	-	Add protobuf type annotations to the end of descriptions so users know the protobuf type that the field converts to.
with-proto-names	-	Use protobuf field names instead of the camelCase JSON names for property names.
with-streaming	-	Generate OpenAPI for client/server/bidirectional streaming RPCs (can be messy).