How ByteCraft Labs Accelerates Development with the Design-First Approach & OpenAPI!
At ByteCraft Labs, we believe in building scalable and maintainable software solutions. For some of our latest .NET Core & ReactJS projects, we are following a Design-First Approach to ensure faster development, better collaboration, and robust API design.
Rather than writing API code first, our process begins with a well-defined OpenAPI Specification, allowing our backend and frontend teams to work in parallel while maintaining API consistency.
Step 1: Define the OpenAPI Specification
The OpenAPI Spec (OAS) serves as a contract for API design. Below is a simple example:
openapi: 3.0.0
info:
title: Simple API
description: A simple API for demonstration
version: 1.0.0
servers:
– url: http://localhost:5000/api
paths:
/items:
get:
summary: Get all items
operationId: getItems
tags:
– Items
responses:
“200”:
description: List of items
content:
application/json:
schema:
type: array
items:
type: object
properties:
id:
type: integer
name:
type: string
Step 2: Generate C# API Code from OpenAPI
To speed up development, we generate .NET Core API code automatically from our OpenAPI spec using OpenAPI Generator.
How To Install OpenAPI Generator CLI
npm install -g @openapitools/openapi-generator-cli
How To Generate API Code
openapi-generator-cli generate -i openapi.yaml -g aspnetcore -o GeneratedAPI
This command:
✅Reads the OpenAPI spec (-i openapi.yaml)
✅Generates an ASP.NET Core API (-g aspnetcore)
✅Outputs the code to the GeneratedAPI folder (-o GeneratedAPI)
Step 3: Updating the API When OpenAPI Spec Changes
If we modify the OpenAPI spec (e.g., add new endpoints), we regenerate the code without overwriting custom changes:
openapi-generator-cli generate -i openapi.yaml -g aspnetcore -o GeneratedAPI –skip-overwrite
Step 4: To compare differences between two OpenAPI specs:
npx @redocly/cli openapi diff old_openapi.yaml new_openapi.yaml
Why ByteCraft Labs Uses the Design-First Approach?
Parallel Development – Backend & frontend teams work simultaneously
Faster API Development – Auto-generated code speeds up the process
Consistent Documentation – Always up-to-date Swagger documentation
Better Maintainability – Cleanly structured API layers
With Design First → API Generation → Implementation, we are making API development faster and more efficient! 🎯