API Creation

Creating an API is as easy as defining the OpenAPI specification.

The API Management page in Control Panel is the central management view for all of your APIs. From here, you can create new APIs by providing OpenAPI specification for it, and then creating a new Process or linking an existing Process to each endpoint you have specified in the spec.

OpenAPI specification editor to create or edit an API.

Once the API specification is saved, you will have the API created in Frends, but none of the endpoints will yet work, because you need to link a Process to each endpoint you specified. You can either create a new Process directly from the API management view which will have the API Trigger as well as any parameters and return values defined automatically, or you can add and link an API Trigger to an existing Process, linking the Process into your API endpoint.

With Processes linked to your API, it can be activated and called using HTTP requests.

Once you have an API created, you have access to monitor the API, as well as to deploy it from the development Environment to other Environments, such as test or production. When deploying an API, the linked Processes will get deployed at the same time, and a new version will created from the API at the same time.

Linked Processes should not be deployed separately by themselves, even if they appear in the Process list normally. While technically possible, it will create a warning for you, stating that the versions of linked Processes are different than expected. It may cause errors or undefined behaviour in the API or in the Processes when executed.

To fix the warnings and possible issues generated by deploying linked Processes separately, re-deploy the API to the target Environment.