Discovery connector nodes

A discovery connector node is a connector node that contains properties whose values are set through a process of connector discovery, by using the Connector Discovery wizard that is provided with the IBM® App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.

You can use the discovery connector request nodes to connect to an application endpoint and issue requests to complete actions on business objects, such as retrieving customer details or creating new contacts. You can use the discovery connector input nodes to monitor an application endpoint for events and receive input when a specified event occurs. The Connector Discovery wizard enables you to discover and set properties for the connector and then return them to node in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.

To configure a discovery connector input or request node in a flow, you launch the Connector Discovery wizard from the property editor for the node in the toolkit. You then use the wizard to connect to your account for the endpoint application, discover the connector properties, and set values for those properties. When you have finished setting the property values and saved them in the wizard, the credential that is used for connecting to your account is stored in the vault, and the other connection details are saved in a policy project. The values of the connector properties that you set in the wizard are returned to the node in the toolkit and displayed in the node property editor. You can then save these properties as part of the node configuration.

During connector discovery, the Connector Discovery wizard generates schema files that describe the format of the request and response messages that are sent and received from the connector. The wizard generates either a response schema and a request schema, or a response schema only, depending on the action selected during discovery. A request schema is generated only if the selected action and object require a request message. The generated request schema is used for validation of the request message. If the action was RETRIEVEALL or DELETEALL, only the response schema is returned by the connector.

The Schema base name property on the input and request nodes specifies the base name of the generated schema files. The schema base name is set automatically the first time that you run connector discovery for the node, and it is based on the current flow name and node name. If you set this property manually before running discovery for the first time, the value that you set is used. If you rename the schemas after discovery, you must edit this property so that it matches the schema base name that is used by the renamed schemas in the project. If you change this property after discovery, you must either rename the schema names to match or run discovery again.

The generated schema files are added to the project and can be used by a Mapping node for transforming input or output data. The full filename of the schema is derived from the schema base name (such as gen/MyMessageFlow.Trello_Request), suffixed with either response.schema.json or request.schema.json. You can open the schema on the Basic tab of the node, by clicking Open request schema or Open response schema.

When a message is propagated by a discovery connector input node or discovery connector request node, the output local environment is updated with details from the interaction with the remote service or server. For more information, see LocalEnvironment structure for connector input and request nodes.

For a full list of message flow nodes, including the discovery connector nodes, see Built-in nodes.