The API designer

The API designer lets you design a complete API directly in Restorm: you describe your data and your routes, and Restorm takes care of the rest — it serves your design like a real mock server, and it generates your application’s code from templates.

It’s the ideal tool for kick-starting an API before the back-end exists: prototype the contract, let your clients test it, and keep everything versioned in your project.

One design, several sections

A design is created like any other item: right-click a folder ▸ Add ▸ API design. It opens in its own tab and gathers several sections, accessible from the sidebar:

Section	What it’s for
Models	Your entities and their properties — see Models, enums and properties.
Enums	Closed sets of values, reusable as a property type.
Routes	The API’s entry points, grouped by resource — see Routes & CRUD.
Server	Serve the design as a mock, over HTTP, GraphQL, SOAP, OData or gRPC — see Serving the design as a mock.
Clients	Ready-to-use requests that call the running mock — see Clients.
Documentation & Notes	Free-form documentation and notes attached to the design.
Code	Code generation from your templates — see Code generation.

The design’s settings (name, defaults) open by clicking directly on the design node in the sidebar.

The typical journey

1. Describe your data — create your models and enums, add their properties, their types and their constraints.
2. Define your routes — by hand, or in one click with Generate CRUD from a model.
3. Serve the mock — start the server and point your application or a client at it. The same design is automatically projected into every enabled protocol.
4. Generate the code — choose one or more templates (yours or those provided by Restorm) and produce the corresponding project.

Each step is detailed in the pages of this section.