---
title: "OpenAPI"
description: "A document derived from your route.ts files, and Scalar's page over it."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rsc-kit.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# OpenAPI

Every `route.ts` already says what an OpenAPI operation needs: the methods it
exports, and the `params`, `searchParams` and `body` schemas beside them. So
the document is derived, not written — the way Elysia derives its from the
schemas on its routes — and it cannot go stale.

```ts title="vite.config.ts"
rscKit({
  openapi: {
info: { title: 'Shop API', version: '1.0.0' },
servers: [{ url: 'https://api.shop.example' }],
security: [{ bearerAuth: [] }],
components: { securitySchemes: { bearerAuth: { type: 'http', scheme: 'bearer' } } },
  },
})
```

`openapi: true` is the same with defaults. The document answers at
`/openapi.json` (`path` moves it), as an api route the build stores, without
middleware — a document exists to be read.

## What a route contributes

```ts title="src/app/api/orders/[id]/route.ts"
import { z } from 'zod'
import type { RouteContext } from '@rsc-kit/core/route-schema'

export const params = z.object({ id: z.coerce.number().int() })
export const searchParams = z.object({ expand: z.boolean().optional() })
export const body = z.object({ title: z.string().min(1) })

export const openapi = {
  tags: ['Orders'],
  PATCH: { summary: 'Rename an order' },
  responses: { 200: { description: 'The order' } },
}

export async function GET(request: Request, { params }: RouteContext<typeof params>) { … }
export async function PATCH(request: Request, { params, body }: RouteContext<typeof params, never, typeof body>) { … }
```

| from | into the document |
| --- | --- |
| the directory | the path: `/api/orders/[id]` → `/api/orders/{id}` |
| each method export | an operation |
| `params` | the path parameters' types; a segment with no schema is a string |
| `searchParams` | one query parameter per property, required where the schema requires it |
| `body` | the request body of `POST`, `PUT`, `PATCH`, `DELETE`, and a documented `422` |
| a `middleware.ts` above | a `session` security requirement, and `401`/`403` |
| `export const openapi` | anything else an operation may say — `summary`, `description`, `tags`, `responses` — shared, or per method under `GET`/`POST`/… |

A schema contributes by describing itself as JSON Schema (Standard JSON
Schema): Zod 4 and ArkType do; Valibot needs its own converter and
contributes nothing yet. Response bodies are what a route declares in
`openapi.responses` — a handler returns `Response`, so nothing else knows the
shape — until a typed response helper carries it.

`export const openapi = false` leaves a route out: the page that renders the
document, a webhook meant for one caller. `{ DELETE: false }` leaves one
method out. An app whose routes are mostly webhooks turns the default
around with `rscKit({ openapi: { include: 'declared' } })`: only a route
that exports `openapi` is documented, and a callback needs no line. `HEAD` and `OPTIONS` are never documented — the engine answers
them for every route, and a file exporting `OPTIONS` for a CORS preflight is
not describing an operation.

## The page

Scalar's API Reference renders from a single function, so the page is one
file and none of it is ours:

```sh
bun add @scalar/client-side-rendering
```

```ts title="src/app/reference/route.ts"
import { renderApiReference } from '@scalar/client-side-rendering'

export const GET = () =>
  new Response(renderApiReference({ config: { url: '/openapi.json' } }), {
headers: { 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8' },
  })
export const openapi = false
```

Not `@scalar/nextjs-api-reference`: it is this same call plus a theme, and it
names `next` as a peer dependency, which npm, pnpm and bun install for you, so
the app gains a copy of Next.js it never runs. `renderApiReference` takes the
rest of Scalar's options too: `pageTitle`, `cdn` to pin a version, and
`nonce` for a strict content security policy.

Stored at build like any route that reads nothing per request. Scalar's
package is the app's dependency and the app's version; the engine ships no
UI and no dependency for it, whether or not the document is on.

## Coming from a hand-written spec

A spec kept in a file has three parts, and two of them move:

- the `paths` — delete them; they are the routes and their schemas now, and
  the same `body` schema validates the request at runtime, which the
  hand-written spec never did
- `info`, `servers`, `security`, `components.securitySchemes` — into
  `rscKit({ openapi })`
- a route's `summary`, `tags` and response shapes — into its
  `export const openapi`

Source: https://docs.rsc-kit.dev/guides/openapi/index.mdx