Configuration

Before you can generate your documentation, you'll need to configure a few things in your config/apidoc.php file.

If you aren't sure what an option does, it's best to leave it set to the default.

type#

This is the type of documentation output to generate.

static will generate a static HTML page in the public/docs folder, so anyone can visit your documentation page by going to {yourapp.domain}/docs.

laravel will generate the documentation as a Blade view within the resources/views/apidoc folder, so you can add routing and authentication to your liking.

In both instances, the source markdown file will be generated in resources/docs/source.

laravel#

If you're using laravel type output, this package can automatically set up an endpoint for you to view your generated docs. You can configure this here.

autoload#

Set this to true if you want the documentation endpoint to be automatically set up for you. Default: false

You may, of course, use your own routing instead of using autoload.

docs_url#

The path for the documentation endpoint (if autoload is true). Your Postman collection (if you have that enabled) will be at this path + '.json' (eg /doc.json). Default: /doc

Note: There is currently a known issue with using /docs as the path for laravel docs. You should not use it, as it conflicts with the folder structure in the public folder and may confuse the webserver.

middleware#

Here, you can specify middleware to be attached to the documentation endpoint (if autoload is true).

router#

The router to use when processing your routes (can be Laravel or Dingo. Defaults to Laravel)

base_url#

The base URL to be used in examples and the Postman collection. By default, this will be the value of config('app.url').

postman#

This package can automatically generate a Postman collection for your routes, along with the documentation. This section is where you can configure (or disable) that.

For static docs (see type), the collection will be created in public/docs/collection.json, so it can be accessed by visiting {yourapp.domain}/docs/colllection.json.

For laravel docs, the collection will be generated to storage/app/apidoc/collection.json. The ApiDoc::routes() helper will add a /docs.json endpoint to fetch it..

enabled#

Whether or not to generate a Postman API collection. Default: true

name#

The name for the exported Postman collection. If you leave this as null, this package will default to config('app.name')." API".

description#

The description for the generated Postman collection.

logo#

You can specify a custom logo to be used on the generated documentation. Set the logo option to an absolute path pointing to your logo file. For example:

'logo' => resource_path('views') . '/api/logo.png'

If you want to use this, please note that the image size must be 230 x 52.

default_group#

When documenting your api, you use @group annotations to group API endpoints. Endpoints which do not have a group annotation will be grouped under the default_group. Defaults to "general".

example_languages#

For each endpoint, an example request is shown in each of the languages specified in this array. Currently only bash, javascript, php and python are supported. You can add your own language, but you must also define the corresponding view (see Specifying languages for examples). Default: ["bash", "javascript"]

faker_seed#

When generating example requests, this package uses fzanninoto/faker to generate random values. If you would like the package to generate the same example values for parameters on each run, set this to any number (eg. 1234). (Note: alternatively, you can set example values for parameters when documenting them.)

routeMatcher#

The route matcher class provides the algorithm that determines what routes should be documented. The default matcher used is the included \Mpociot\ApiDoc\Matching\RouteMatcher::class, and you can provide your own custom implementation if you wish to programmatically change the algorithm. The provided matcher must be an instance of the RouteMatcherInterface.

fractal#

This section only applies if you're using Transformers for your API, and documenting responses with @transformer and @transformerCollection. Here, you configure how responses are transformed.

Note: using transformers requires league/fractal package. Run `composer require league/fractal to install

serializer#

If you are using a custom serializer with league/fractal, you can specify it here. league/fractal comes with the following serializers:

• \League\Fractal\Serializer\ArraySerializer::class
• \League\Fractal\Serializer\DataArraySerializer::class
• \League\Fractal\Serializer\JsonApiSerializer::class

Leave this as null to use no serializer or return a simple JSON.

routes#

The routes section is an array of items, describing what routes in your application that should have documentation generated for them. Each item in the array contains rules about what routes belong in that group, and what rules to apply to them. This allows you to apply different settings to different routes.

Note: This package does not work with Closure-based routes. If you want your route to be captured by this package, you need a controller.

Each item in the routes array (a route group) has keys which are explained below. We'll use this sample route definition for a Laravel app to demonstrate them:

Route::group(['domain' => 'api.acme.co'], function () {
  Route::get('/apps', 'AppController@listApps')
    ->name('apps.list');
  Route::get('/apps/{id}', 'AppController@getApp')
    ->name('apps.get');
  Route::post('/apps', 'AppController@createApp')
    ->name('apps.create');
  Route::get('/users', 'UserController@listUsers')
    ->name('users.list');
  Route::get('/users/{id}', 'UserController@getUser')
    ->name('users.get');
});

Route::group(['domain' => 'public-api.acme.co'], function () {
  Route::get('/stats', 'PublicController@getStats')
    ->name('public.stats');
});

Route::group(['domain' => 'status.acme.co'], function () {
  Route::get('/status', 'PublicController@getStatus')
    ->name('status');
});

match#

In this section, you define the rules that will be used to determine what routes in your application fall into this group. There are three kinds of rules defined here (keys in the match array):

domains#

This key takes an array of domain names as its value. Only routes which are defined on the domains specified here will be matched as part of this group. For instance, in our sample routes above, we may wish to apply different settings to documentation based on the domains. For instance, the routes on the api.acme.co domain need authentication, while those on the other domains do not. We can separate them into two groups like this:

return [
  //...,
  
  'routes' => [
    [
      'match' => [
        'domains' => ['api.acme.co'],
        'prefixes' => ['*'],
      ],
      'apply' => [
        'headers' => [ 'Authorization' => 'Bearer {your-token}']
      ]
    ],
    [
      'match' => [
        'domains' => ['public-api.acme.co', 'status.acme.co'],
        'prefixes' => ['*'],
      ],
    ],
  ],
];

The first group will match all routes on the 'api.acme.co' domain, and add a header 'Authorization: Bearer {your-token}' to the examples in the generated documentation. The second group will pick up the other routes. The Authorization header will not be added for those ones.

You can use the * wildcard to match all domains (or as a placeholder in a pattern).

prefixes#

The prefixes key is similar to the domains key, but is based on URL path prefixes (ie. what the part starts with, after the domain name). You could use prefixes to rewrite our example configuration above in a different way:

return [
  //...,
  
  'routes' => [
    [
      'match' => [
         'domains' => ['*'],
         'prefixes' => ['users/*', 'apps/*'],
       ],
       'apply' => [
         'headers' => [ 'Authorization' => 'Bearer {your-token}']
       ]
    ],
    [
      'match' => [
         'domains' => ['*'],
         'prefixes' => ['stats/*', 'status/*'],
      ],
    ],
  ],
];

This would achieve the same as the first configuration. As with domains, the * character is a wildcard. This means you can set up a ingle group to match all your routes by using 'domains' => ['*'], 'prefixes' => ['*']. (This is set by default.)

The domains and prefixes keys are both required for all route groups.

versions#

This section only applies if you're using Dingo Router

When using Dingo's Router, all routes must be specified inside versions. This means that you must specify the versions to be matched along with the domains and prefixes when describing a route group. Note that wildcards in versions are not supported; you must list out all your versions explicitly. Example:

return [
 //...,
 
 'routes' => [
   [
     'match' => [
       'domains' => ['*'],
       'prefixes' => ['*'],
       'versions' => ['v1', 'beta'], // only if you're using Dingo router
     ],
   ],
 ],
];

include and exclude#

The include key holds an array of patterns (route names or paths) which should be included in this group, even if they do not match the rules in the match section.

The exclude key holds an array of patterns (route names or paths) which should be excluded from this group, even if they match the rules in the match section.

Using our above sample routes, assuming you wanted to place the users.list route in the second group (no Authorization header), here's how you could do it:

return [
  //...,
  
  'routes' => [
    [
      'match' => [
        'domains' => ['api.acme.co'],
        'prefixes' => ['*'],
      ],
      'exclude' => ['users.list'],
      'apply' => [
        'headers' => [ 'Authorization' => 'Bearer {your-token}']
      ]
    ],
    [
      'match' => [
        'domains' => ['public-api.acme.co', 'status.acme.co'],
        'prefixes' => ['*'],
      ],
      'include' => ['users.list'],
    ],
  ],
];

These values support wildcards and paths, so you can have 'exclude' => ['users/*'] to exclude all routes with URLs matching the pattern.

apply#

After defining the routes in match (and include or exclude), apply is where you specify the settings to be applied to those routes when generating documentation. There are a bunch of settings you can tweak here:

headers#

Like we've demonstrated above, any headers you specify here will be added to the headers shown in the example requests in your documentation. They will also be included in "response calls". Headers are specified as key => value strings.

response_calls#

These are the settings that will be applied when making "response calls". See the linked section for details.