Working in API Designer

Work with API definitions locally using the API Designer application, then import them to API Connect Enterprise as a Service for staging and publishing.

About this task

Use API Designer when you work with APIs locally. You must connect to a server to stage and publish the APIs.

Procedure

  1. Create a directory on your local file system where you can store the API and Product specifications that you create in API Designer.
  2. Download and set up API Designer as described in Setting up the API Connect toolkit.

    API Designer is a component of the API Connect toolkit, so you download the app and set up credentials while setting up a toolkit. Be sure to download both the API Designer application the associated credentials.

  3. Start API Designer by running the application from the location where you extracted the contents of the toolkit compressed file.
  4. Click Open a Directory and select the local directory where you will store APIs and related assets.
  5. On the login page, click IBM Verify and enter your IBM ID and password.

    An IBM ID is required for working with API Connect Enterprise as a Service and its toolkit.

    If you see the Accept License page, click the URL to read the license agreement, then click the button to accept the license.

  6. Create a New API Connect connection by filling in the host name of the server where your API Manager is hosted.
    To determine the host name, open API Manager in a browser and copy the host name from the URL in the address bar (beginning after "https://" and ending before "/manager") as shown in the following example:
    https://api-manager.us-east-1.d-r01.apic.cloud.ibm.com/manager
  7. On the API Designer Home page, select Develop APIs and Products to start working.