Creating PowerShell Modules from OpenAPI Specs, Lessons Learned

REST APIs are everywhere these days. A majority of those are backed by what’s known as OpenAPI (swagger) Specifications. There are a million tools to convert OpenAPI specs to documentation, code, etc. But, not for PowerShell. We’ll discuss what tools are available for the PowerShell enthusiast.

REST APIs have become commonplace these days. If I’m to believe the manual, even my refrigerator has one! A lot of these REST API services are backed by what’s known as OpenAPI (swagger) Specifications. This is important because there’s an entire ecosystem that is devoted to taking these specifications and creating documentation, client side SDKs, and anything else people can come up with. Literally, it’s code that writes code. When it comes to client side SDKs, these specs can be turned into any number of programming languages, except PowerShell generally isn’t one of those languages. This session is going to take a look at the what REST APIs and OpenAPI specs are, why auto-generated modules are so important, then we’ll focus on the handful of tools available to create auto-generated modules.