OpenAPI & JSON Specs Hub

Introduction

The OpenAPI Specification (OAS) defines a standard, language-agnostic interface to HTTP APIs which allows both humans and computers to discover and understand the capabilities of the service without access to source code, documentation, or through network traffic inspection. When properly defined, a consumer can understand and interact with the remote service by parsing and serializing HTTP messages to and from a data model with a minimal amount of implementation logic.

An OpenAPI Description (OAD) can then be used by documentation generation tools to display the API, code generation tools to generate servers and clients in various programming languages, testing tools, and many other use cases.

For examples of OpenAPI usage and additional documentation, please visit [[?OpenAPI-Learn]].

For extension registries and other specifications published by the OpenAPI Initiative, as well as the authoritative rendering of this specification, please visit spec.openapis.org.

Versions and Deprecation

The OpenAPI Specification is versioned using a major.minor.patch versioning scheme. The major.minor portion of the version string (for example 3.1) SHALL designate the OAS feature set. .patch versions address errors in, or provide clarifications to, this document, not the feature set. Tooling which supports OAS 3.1 SHOULD be compatible with all OAS 3.1.* versions. The patch version SHOULD NOT be considered by tooling, making no distinction between 3.1.0 and 3.1.1 for example.

Certain fields or features may be marked Deprecated. These fields and features remain part of the specification and can be used like any other field or feature. However, OpenAPI Description authors should use newer fields and features documented to replace the deprecated ones whenever possible.

At this time, such elements are expected to remain part of the OAS until the next major version, although a future minor version of this specification may define a policy for later removal of deprecated elements.

Occasionally, non-backwards compatible changes may be made in minor versions of the OAS where impact is believed to be low relative to the benefit provided.

Undefined and Implementation-Defined Behavior

This specification deems certain situations to have either undefined or implementation-defined behavior.

Behavior described as undefined is likely, at least in some circumstances, to result in outcomes that contradict the specification. This description is used when detecting the contradiction is impossible or impractical. Implementations MAY support undefined scenarios for historical reasons, including ambiguous text in prior versions of the specification. This support might produce correct outcomes in many cases, but relying on it is NOT RECOMMENDED as there is no guarantee that it will work across all tools or with future specification versions, even if those versions are otherwise strictly compatible with this one.

Behavior described as implementation-defined allows implementations to choose which of several different-but-compliant approaches to a requirement to implement. This documents ambiguous requirements that API description authors are RECOMMENDED to avoid in order to maximize interoperability. Unlike undefined behavior, it is safe to rely on implementation-defined behavior if and only if it can be guaranteed that all relevant tools support the same behavior.

Format

An OpenAPI document that conforms to the OpenAPI Specification is itself a JSON object, which may be represented either in [[RFC8259|JSON]] or [[YAML|YAML]] format. Examples in this specification will be shown in YAML for brevity.

All field names in the specification are case-sensitive. This includes all fields that are used as keys in a map, except where explicitly noted that keys are case-insensitive.

OAS Objects expose two types of fields: fixed fields, which have a declared name, and patterned fields, which have a declared pattern for the field name.

Patterned fields MUST have unique names within the containing object.

Note: While APIs may be described by OpenAPI Descriptions in either YAML or JSON format, the API request and response bodies and other content are not required to be JSON or YAML.

JSON and YAML Compatibility

In order to preserve the ability to round-trip between YAML and JSON formats, YAML version 1.2 is RECOMMENDED along with the additional constraints listed in [[!RFC9512]] Section 3.4.

The recommendation in previous versions of this specification to restrict YAML to its "JSON" schema ruleset allowed for the inclusion of certain values that (despite the name) cannot be represented in JSON. OAD authors SHOULD NOT rely on any such JSON-incompatible YAML values.

Case Sensitivity

As most field names and values in the OpenAPI Specification are case-sensitive, this document endeavors to call out any case-insensitive names and values. However, the case sensitivity of field names and values that map directly to HTTP concepts follow the case sensitivity rules of HTTP, even if this document does not make a note of every concept.

Rich Text Formatting

Throughout the specification description fields are noted as supporting CommonMark markdown formatting. Where OpenAPI tooling renders rich text it MUST support, at a minimum, markdown syntax as described by CommonMark 0.27. Tooling MAY choose to ignore some CommonMark or extension features to address security concerns.

While the framing of CommonMark 0.27 as a minimum requirement means that tooling MAY choose to implement extensions on top of it, note that any such extensions are by definition implementation-defined and will not be interoperable. OpenAPI Description authors SHOULD consider how text using such extensions will be rendered by tools that offer only the minimum support.

Objects and Fields

This section describes the structure of the OpenAPI Description format. This text is the only normative description of the format. A JSON Schema is hosted on spec.openapis.org for informational purposes. If the JSON Schema differs from this section, then this section MUST be considered authoritative.

In the following description, if a field is not explicitly REQUIRED or described with a MUST or SHALL, it can be considered OPTIONAL.

OpenAPI ObjectExample

This is the root object of the OpenAPI Description.

Fixed FieldsExample

In addition to the required fields, at least one of the components, paths, or webhooks fields MUST be present.

Field Name	Type	Description
openapi	string	REQUIRED. This string MUST be the version number of the OpenAPI Specification that the OpenAPI document uses. The openapi field SHOULD be used by tooling to interpret the OpenAPI document. This is not related to the info.version string, which describes the OpenAPI document's version.
$self	string	This string MUST be in the form of a URI reference as defined by [[RFC3986]] Section 4.1. The $self field provides the self-assigned URI of this document, which also serves as its base URI in accordance with [[RFC3986]] Section 5.1.1. Implementations MUST support identifying the targets of API description URIs using the URI defined by this field when it is present. See Establishing the Base URI for the base URI behavior when $self is absent or relative, and see Appendix F for examples of using $self to resolve references.
info	Info Object	REQUIRED. Provides metadata about the API. The metadata MAY be used by tooling as required.
jsonSchemaDialect	string	The default value for the $schema keyword within Schema Objects contained within this OAS document. This MUST be in the form of a URI.
servers	[Server Object]	An array of Server Objects, which provide connectivity information to a target server. If the servers field is not provided, or is an empty array, the default value would be an array consisting of a single Server Object with a url value of /.
paths	Paths Object	The available paths and operations for the API.
webhooks	Map[string, Path Item Object]	The incoming webhooks that MAY be received as part of this API and that the API consumer MAY choose to implement. Closely related to the callbacks feature, this section describes requests initiated other than by an API call, for example by an out of band registration. The key name is a unique string to refer to each webhook, while the (optionally referenced) Path Item Object describes a request that may be initiated by the API provider and the expected responses. An example is available.
components	Components Object	An element to hold various Objects for the OpenAPI Description.
security	[Security Requirement Object]	A declaration of which security mechanisms can be used across the API. The list of values includes alternative Security Requirement Objects that can be used. Only one of the Security Requirement Objects need to be satisfied to authorize a request. Individual operations can override this definition. The list can be incomplete, up to being empty or absent. To make security explicitly optional, an empty security requirement ({}) can be included in the array.
tags	[Tag Object]	A list of tags used by the OpenAPI Description with additional metadata. The order of the tags can be used to reflect on their order by the parsing tools. Not all tags that are used by the Operation Object must be declared. The tags that are not declared MAY be organized randomly or based on the tools' logic. Each tag name in the list MUST be unique.
externalDocs	External Documentation Object	Additional external documentation.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

To ensure interoperability, references MUST use the target document's $self URI if the $self field is present. Implementations MAY choose to support referencing by other URIs such as the retrieval URI even when $self is present, however this behavior is not interoperable and relying on it is NOT RECOMMENDED.

OpenAPI Description StructureExample

An OpenAPI Description (OAD) formally describes the surface of an API and its semantics. An OAD MAY be made up of a single document, or be distributed across multiple documents that are connected by various fields using URI references and implicit connections.

In order for parsing behavior to be well-defined, all documents in an OAD MUST have either an OpenAPI Object or a Schema Object at the root, and MUST be parsed as complete documents, as described in the next section.

Documents with a different Object at the root, or that mix OAD content with other content, MAY be supported, but will have implementation-defined or, potentially, undefined behavior as described in Appendix G: Parsing and Resolution Guidance. Throughout this specification, documents are assumed to have either an OpenAPI Object or Schema Object at the root unless otherwise specified.

In a multi-document OAD, the document containing the OpenAPI Object where parsing begins is known as that OAD's entry document. It is RECOMMENDED that the entry document of an OAD be named openapi.json or openapi.yaml.

An OpenAPI Object MAY be embedded in another format, called the embedding format, just as JSON Schema is embedded in the OAS in the form of Schema Objects. It is the responsibility of an embedding format to define how to parse embedded content, and OAS implementations that do not document support for an embedding format cannot be expected to parse embedded OAS content correctly.

Parsing Documents

Each document in an OAD MUST be fully parsed in order to locate possible reference targets. This includes the parsing requirements of JSON Schema Specification Draft 2020-12, with appropriate modifications regarding base URIs as specified in Relative References In URIs. Reference targets are defined by fields including the OpenAPI Object's $self field and the Schema Object's $id, $anchor, and $dynamicAnchor keywords.

Implementations MUST NOT treat a reference as unresolvable before completely parsing all documents provided to the implementation as possible parts of the OAD.

If only the referenced part of the document is parsed when resolving a reference, the resulting behavior can be implementation-defined or undefined; see Warnings Regarding Fragmentary Parsing in Appendix G for details.

Relative References in API Description URIs

URIs used as references within an OpenAPI Description, or to external documentation or other supplementary information such as a license, are resolved as identifiers, and described by this specification as URIs, in contrast with API URLs. Note that some URI fields are named url for historical reasons, but the descriptive text for those fields uses the correct "URI" terminology.

As noted under Parsing Documents, several fields can be used to associate an OpenAPI document or a Schema Object with a URI, which might not match the document's or schema's location. This allows the same references to be used in different deployment environments, including local filesystems or networks restricted by security policies or connectivity limitations.

Unless specified otherwise, all fields that are URIs MAY be relative references as defined by [[RFC3986]] Section 4.2.

Establishing the Base URI

Relative URI references are resolved using the appropriate base URI, which MUST be determined in accordance with [[RFC3986]] Section 5.1.1 – 5.1.4 and, for Schema objects, JSON Schema draft 2020-12 Section 8.2, as illustrated by the examples in Appendix F: Examples of Base URI Determination and Reference Resolution.

If $self is a relative URI reference, it is resolved against the next possible base URI source ([[RFC3986]] Section 5.1.2 – 5.1.4) before being used for the resolution of other relative URI references.

The most common base URI source that is used in the event of a missing or relative $self (in the OpenAPI Object) and (for Schema Object) $id is the retrieval URI. Implementations MAY support document retrieval, although see the Security Considerations sections for additional guidance. Even if retrieval is supported, it may be impossible due to network configuration or server unavailability (including the server hosting an older version while a new version is in development), or undesirable due to performance impacts. Therefore, all implementations SHOULD allow users to provide documents with their intended retrieval URIs so that references can be resolved as if retrievals were performed.

Resolving URI fragments

If a URI contains a fragment identifier, then the fragment should be resolved per the fragment resolution mechanism of the referenced document. If the representation of the referenced document is JSON or YAML, then the fragment identifier SHOULD be interpreted as a JSON Pointer as per RFC6901.

Relative URI References in CommonMark Fields

Relative references in CommonMark hyperlinks are resolved in their rendered context, which might differ from the context of the API description.

Resolving Implicit Connections

Several features of this specification require resolution of non-URI-based connections to some other part of the OpenAPI Description (OAD).

These connections are unambiguously resolved in single-document OADs, but the resolution process in multi-document OADs is implementation-defined, within the constraints described in this section. In some cases, an unambiguous URI-based alternative is available, and OAD authors are RECOMMENDED to use the alternative to maximize interoperability.

For resolving Components Object and Tag Object names from a referenced (non-entry) document, it is RECOMMENDED that tools resolve from the entry document, rather than the current document. For resolving an Operation Object based on an operationId, it is RECOMMENDED to consider all Operation Objects from all parsed documents.

Note that no aspect of implicit connection resolution changes how URIs are resolved, or restricts their possible targets.

See Appendix G: Parsing and Resolution Guidance for more details, including a list of Objects and fields using implicit connections.

Info ObjectExample

The object provides metadata about the API. The metadata MAY be used by the clients if needed, and MAY be presented in editing or documentation generation tools for convenience.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
title	string	REQUIRED. The title of the API.
summary	string	A short summary of the API.
description	string	A description of the API. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
termsOfService	string	A URI for the Terms of Service for the API. This MUST be in the form of a URI.
contact	Contact Object	The contact information for the exposed API.
license	License Object	The license information for the exposed API.
version	string	REQUIRED. The version of the OpenAPI document (which is distinct from the OpenAPI Specification version or the version of the API being described or the version of the OpenAPI Description).

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Info Object ExampleExample

title: Example Pet Store App
summary: A pet store manager.
description: This is an example server for a pet store.
termsOfService: https://example.com/terms/
contact:
  name: API Support
  url: https://www.example.com/support
  email: support@example.com
license:
  name: Apache 2.0
  url: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html
version: 1.0.1

Contact ObjectExample

Contact information for the exposed API.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
name	string	The identifying name of the contact person/organization.
url	string	The URI for the contact information. This MUST be in the form of a URI.
email	string	The email address of the contact person/organization. This MUST be in the form of an email address.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Contact Object ExampleExample

name: API Support
url: https://www.example.com/support
email: support@example.com

License Object

License information for the exposed API.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
name	string	REQUIRED. The license name used for the API.
identifier	string	An SPDX license expression for the API. The identifier field is mutually exclusive of the url field.
url	string	A URI for the license used for the API. This MUST be in the form of a URI. The url field is mutually exclusive of the identifier field.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

License Object Example

name: Apache 2.0
identifier: Apache-2.0

Server ObjectExample

An object representing a Server.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
url	string	REQUIRED. A URL to the target host. This URL supports Server Variables and MAY be relative, to indicate that the host location is relative to the location where the document containing the Server Object is being served. Query and fragment MUST NOT be part of this URL. Variable substitutions will be made when a variable is named in {braces}.
description	string	An optional string describing the host designated by the URL. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
name	string	An optional unique string to refer to the host designated by the URL.
variables	Map[string, Server Variable Object]	A map between a variable name and its value. The value is used for substitution in the server's URL template.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Relative References in API URLs

API endpoints are by definition accessed as locations, and are described by this specification as URLs.

Unless specified otherwise, all fields that are URLs MAY be relative references as defined by RFC3986.

Because the API is a distinct entity from the OpenAPI document, RFC3986's base URI rules for the OpenAPI document do not apply. Unless specified otherwise, relative references are resolved using the URLs defined in the Server Object as a base URL. Note that these themselves MAY be relative to the referring document.

Examples of API Base URL Determination

Assume a retrieval URI of https://device1.example.com for the following OpenAPI document:

openapi: 3.2.0
$self: https://apidescriptions.example.com/foo
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0
servers:
- url: .
  description: The production API on this device
- url: ./test
  description: The test API on this device

For API URLs the $self field, which identifies the OpenAPI document, is ignored and the retrieval URI is used instead. This produces a normalized production URL of https://device1.example.com, and a normalized test URL of https://device1.example.com/test.

Server Object ExampleExample

A single server would be described as:

url: https://development.gigantic-server.com/v1
description: Development server
name: dev

The following shows how multiple servers can be described, for example, at the OpenAPI Object's servers:

servers:
  - url: https://development.gigantic-server.com/v1
    description: Development server
    name: dev
  - url: https://staging.gigantic-server.com/v1
    description: Staging server
    name: staging
  - url: https://api.gigantic-server.com/v1
    description: Production server
    name: prod

The following shows how variables can be used for a server configuration:

servers:
  - url: https://{username}.gigantic-server.com:{port}/{basePath}
    description: The production API server
    name: prod
    variables:
      username:
        # note! no enum here means it is an open value
        default: demo
        description: A user-specific subdomain. Use `demo` for a free sandbox environment.
      port:
        enum:
          - '8443'
          - '443'
        default: '8443'
      basePath:
        # open meaning there is the opportunity to use special base paths as assigned by the provider, default is "v2"
        default: v2

Server Variable ObjectExample

An object representing a Server Variable for server URL template substitution.

The server URL templating is defined by the following ABNF syntax.

server-url-template  = 1*( literals / server-variable )
server-variable      = "{" server-variable-name "}"
server-variable-name = 1*( %x00-7A / %x7C / %x7E-10FFFF ) ; every Unicode character except { and }

literals       = 1*( %x21 / %x23-24 / %x26-3B / %x3D / %x3F-5B
               / %x5D / %x5F / %x61-7A / %x7E / ucschar / iprivate
               / pct-encoded)
                    ; any Unicode character except: CTL, SP,
                    ;  DQUOTE, "%" (aside from pct-encoded),
                    ;  "<", ">", "\", "^", "`", "{", "|", "}"
pct-encoded    =  "%" HEXDIG HEXDIG
ucschar        =  %xA0-D7FF / %xF900-FDCF / %xFDF0-FFEF
               /  %x10000-1FFFD / %x20000-2FFFD / %x30000-3FFFD
               /  %x40000-4FFFD / %x50000-5FFFD / %x60000-6FFFD
               /  %x70000-7FFFD / %x80000-8FFFD / %x90000-9FFFD
               /  %xA0000-AFFFD / %xB0000-BFFFD / %xC0000-CFFFD
               /  %xD0000-DFFFD / %xE1000-EFFFD
iprivate       =  %xE000-F8FF / %xF0000-FFFFD / %x100000-10FFFD

Here, literals, pct-encoded, ucschar and iprivate definitions are taken from RFC 6570, incorporating the corrections specified in Errata 6937 for literals.

Each server variable MUST NOT appear more than once in the URL template.

See the Paths Object for guidance on constructing full request URLs.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
enum	[string]	An enumeration of string values to be used if the substitution options are from a limited set. The array MUST NOT be empty.
default	string	REQUIRED. The default value to use for substitution, which SHALL be sent if an alternate value is not supplied. If the enum is defined, the value MUST exist in the enum's values. Note that this behavior is different from the Schema Object's default keyword, which documents the receiver's behavior rather than inserting the value into the data.
description	string	An optional description for the server variable. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Components ObjectExample

Holds a set of reusable objects for different aspects of the OAS. All objects defined within the Components Object will have no effect on the API unless they are explicitly referenced from outside the Components Object.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
schemas	Map[string, Schema Object]	An object to hold reusable Schema Objects.
responses	Map[string, Response Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Response Objects.
parameters	Map[string, Parameter Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Parameter Objects.
examples	Map[string, Example Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Example Objects.
requestBodies	Map[string, Request Body Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Request Body Objects.
headers	Map[string, Header Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Header Objects.
securitySchemes	Map[string, Security Scheme Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Security Scheme Objects.
links	Map[string, Link Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Link Objects.
callbacks	Map[string, Callback Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Callback Objects.
pathItems	Map[string, Path Item Object]	An object to hold reusable Path Item Objects.
mediaTypes	Map[string, Media Type Object | Reference Object]	An object to hold reusable Media Type Objects.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

All the fixed fields declared above are objects that MUST use keys that match the regular expression: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\.\-_]+$.

Field Name Examples:

User
User_1
User_Name
user-name
my.org.User

Components Object ExampleExample

components:
  schemas:
    GeneralError:
      type: object
      properties:
        code:
          type: integer
          format: int32
        message:
          type: string
    Category:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: integer
          format: int64
        name:
          type: string
    Tag:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: integer
          format: int64
        name:
          type: string
  parameters:
    skipParam:
      name: skip
      in: query
      description: number of items to skip
      required: true
      schema:
        type: integer
        format: int32
    limitParam:
      name: limit
      in: query
      description: max records to return
      required: true
      schema:
        type: integer
        format: int32
  responses:
    NotFound:
      description: Entity not found.
    IllegalInput:
      description: Illegal input for operation.
    GeneralError:
      description: General Error
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/GeneralError'
  securitySchemes:
    api_key:
      type: apiKey
      name: api-key
      in: header
    petstore_auth:
      type: oauth2
      flows:
        implicit:
          authorizationUrl: https://example.org/api/oauth/dialog
          scopes:
            write:pets: modify pets in your account
            read:pets: read your pets

Paths ObjectExample

Holds the relative paths to the individual endpoints and their operations. The path is appended to the URL from the Server Object in order to construct the full URL. The Paths Object MAY be empty, due to Access Control List (ACL) constraints.

Patterned FieldsExample

Field Pattern	Type	Description
/{path}	Path Item Object	A relative path to an individual endpoint. The field name MUST begin with a forward slash (/). The URL from the Server Object's url field, resolved and with template variables substituted, has the path appended (no relative URL resolution) to it in order to construct the full URL. Path templating is allowed. When matching URLs, concrete (non-templated) paths would be matched before their templated counterparts. Templated paths with the same hierarchy but different templated names MUST NOT exist as they are identical. In case of ambiguous matching, it's up to the tooling to decide which one to use.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Path TemplatingExample

Path templating refers to the usage of template expressions, delimited by curly braces ({}), to mark a section of a URL path as replaceable using path parameters.

Each template expression in the path MUST correspond to a path parameter that is included in the Path Item itself and/or in each of the Path Item's Operations. An exception is if the path item is empty, for example due to ACL constraints, matching path parameters are not required.

The value for these path parameters MUST NOT contain any unescaped "generic syntax" characters described by RFC3986: forward slashes (/), question marks (?), or hashes (#). See URL Percent-Encoding for additional guidance on escaping characters.

The path templating is defined by the following ABNF syntax

path-template                  = "/" *( path-segment "/" ) [ path-segment ]
path-segment                   = 1*( path-literal / template-expression )
path-literal                   = 1*pchar
template-expression            = "{" template-expression-param-name "}"
template-expression-param-name = 1*( %x00-7A / %x7C / %x7E-10FFFF ) ; every Unicode character except { and }

pchar               = unreserved / pct-encoded / sub-delims / ":" / "@"
unreserved          = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"
pct-encoded         = "%" HEXDIG HEXDIG
sub-delims          = "!" / "$" / "&" / "'" / "(" / ")"
                    / "*" / "+" / "," / ";" / "="

Here, pchar, unreserved, pct-encoded and sub-delims definitions are taken from RFC 3986. The path-template is directly derived from RFC 3986, section 3.3.

Each template expression MUST NOT appear more than once in a single path template.

See also Appendix C: Using RFC6570-Based Serialization for additional guidance.

Path Templating Matching

Assuming the following paths, the concrete definition, /pets/mine, will be matched first if used:

  /pets/{petId}
  /pets/mine

The following paths are considered identical and invalid:

  /pets/{petId}
  /pets/{name}

The following may lead to ambiguous resolution:

  /{entity}/me
  /books/{id}

Paths Object ExampleExample

/pets:
  get:
    description: Returns all pets from the system that the user has access to
    responses:
      '200':
        description: A list of pets.
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              type: array
              items:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/pet'

Path Item ObjectExample

Describes the operations available on a single path. A Path Item MAY be empty, due to ACL constraints. The path itself is still exposed to the documentation viewer but they will not know which operations and parameters are available.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
$ref	string	Allows for a referenced definition of this path item. The value MUST be in the form of a URI, and the referenced structure MUST be in the form of a Path Item Object. In case a Path Item Object field appears both in the defined object and the referenced object, the behavior is undefined. See the rules for resolving Relative References. Note: The behavior of $ref with adjacent properties is likely to change in future versions of this specification to bring it into closer alignment with the behavior of the Reference Object.
summary	string	An optional string summary, intended to apply to all operations in this path.
description	string	An optional string description, intended to apply to all operations in this path. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
get	Operation Object	A definition of a GET operation on this path.
put	Operation Object	A definition of a PUT operation on this path.
post	Operation Object	A definition of a POST operation on this path.
delete	Operation Object	A definition of a DELETE operation on this path.
options	Operation Object	A definition of a OPTIONS operation on this path.
head	Operation Object	A definition of a HEAD operation on this path.
patch	Operation Object	A definition of a PATCH operation on this path.
trace	Operation Object	A definition of a TRACE operation on this path.
query	Operation Object	A definition of a QUERY operation, as defined in the most recent IETF draft (draft-ietf-httpbis-safe-method-w-body-08 as of this writing) or its RFC successor, on this path.
additionalOperations	Map[string, Operation Object]	A map of additional operations on this path. The map key is the HTTP method with the same capitalization that is to be sent in the request. This map MUST NOT contain any entry for the methods that can be defined by other fixed fields with Operation Object values (e.g. no POST entry, as the post field is used for this method).
servers	[Server Object]	An alternative servers array to service all operations in this path. If a servers array is specified at the OpenAPI Object level, it will be overridden by this value.
parameters	[Parameter Object | Reference Object]	A list of parameters that are applicable for all the operations described under this path. These parameters can be overridden at the operation level, but cannot be removed there. The list MUST NOT include duplicated parameters. A unique parameter is defined by a combination of a name and location. The list can use the Reference Object to link to parameters that are defined in the OpenAPI Object's components.parameters.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Path Item Object ExampleExample

get:
  description: Returns pets based on ID
  summary: Find pets by ID
  operationId: getPetsById
  responses:
    '200':
      description: pet response
      content:
        '*/*':
          schema:
            type: array
            items:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
    default:
      description: error payload
      content:
        text/html:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorModel'
parameters:
  - name: id
    in: path
    description: ID of pet to use
    required: true
    schema:
      type: array
      items:
        type: string
    style: simple
additionalOperations:
  COPY:
    description: Copies pet information based on ID
    summary: Copies pets by ID
    operationId: copyPetsById
    responses:
      '200':
        description: pet response
        content:
          '*/*':
            schema:
              type: array
              items:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
      default:
        description: error payload
        content:
          text/html:
            schema:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorModel'

Operation ObjectExample

Describes a single API operation on a path.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
tags	[string]	A list of tags for API documentation control. Tags can be used for logical grouping of operations by resources or any other qualifier.
summary	string	A short summary of what the operation does.
description	string	A verbose explanation of the operation behavior. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
externalDocs	External Documentation Object	Additional external documentation for this operation.
operationId	string	Unique string used to identify the operation. The id MUST be unique among all operations described in the API. The operationId value is case-sensitive. Tools and libraries MAY use the operationId to uniquely identify an operation, therefore, it is RECOMMENDED to follow common programming naming conventions.
parameters	[Parameter Object | Reference Object]	A list of parameters that are applicable for this operation. If a parameter is already defined at the Path Item, the new definition will override it but can never remove it. The list MUST NOT include duplicated parameters. A unique parameter is defined by a combination of a name and location. The list can use the Reference Object to link to parameters that are defined in the OpenAPI Object's components.parameters.
requestBody	Request Body Object | Reference Object	The request body applicable for this operation. The requestBody is fully supported in HTTP methods where the HTTP specification RFC9110 has explicitly defined semantics for request bodies. In other cases where the HTTP spec discourages message content (such as GET and DELETE), requestBody is permitted but does not have well-defined semantics and SHOULD be avoided if possible.
responses	Responses Object	The list of possible responses as they are returned from executing this operation.
callbacks	Map[string, Callback Object | Reference Object]	A map of possible out-of band callbacks related to the parent operation. The key is a unique identifier for the Callback Object. Each value in the map is a Callback Object that describes a request that may be initiated by the API provider and the expected responses.
deprecated	boolean	Declares this operation to be deprecated. Consumers SHOULD refrain from usage of the declared operation. Default value is false.
security	[Security Requirement Object]	A declaration of which security mechanisms can be used for this operation. The list of values includes alternative Security Requirement Objects that can be used. Only one of the Security Requirement Objects need to be satisfied to authorize a request. To make security optional, an empty security requirement ({}) can be included in the array. This definition overrides any declared top-level security. To remove a top-level security declaration, an empty array can be used.
servers	[Server Object]	An alternative servers array to service this operation. If a servers array is specified at the Path Item Object or OpenAPI Object level, it will be overridden by this value.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Operation Object ExampleExample

tags:
  - pet
summary: Updates a pet in the store with form data
operationId: updatePetWithForm
parameters:
  - name: petId
    in: path
    description: ID of pet that needs to be updated
    required: true
    schema:
      type: string
requestBody:
  content:
    application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
      schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          name:
            description: Updated name of the pet
            type: string
          status:
            description: Updated status of the pet
            type: string
        required:
          - status
responses:
  '200':
    description: Pet updated.
    content:
      application/json: {}
      application/xml: {}
  '405':
    description: Method Not Allowed
    content:
      application/json: {}
      application/xml: {}
security:
  - petstore_auth:
      - write:pets
      - read:pets

External Documentation ObjectExample

Allows referencing an external resource for extended documentation.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
description	string	A description of the target documentation. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
url	string	REQUIRED. The URI for the target documentation. This MUST be in the form of a URI.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

External Documentation Object ExampleExample

description: Find more info here
url: https://example.com

Parameter ObjectExample

Describes a single operation parameter.

A unique parameter is defined by a combination of a name and location.

See Appendix E for a detailed examination of percent-encoding concerns, including interactions with the application/x-www-form-urlencoded query string format.

Parameter LocationsExample

There are five possible parameter locations specified by the in field:

• path - Used together with Path Templating, where the parameter value is actually part of the operation's URL. This does not include the host or base path of the API. For example, in /items/{itemId}, the path parameter is itemId.
• query - Parameters that are appended to the URL. For example, in /items?id=###, the query parameter is id; MUST NOT appear in the same operation (or in the operation's path-item) as an in: "querystring" parameter.
• querystring - A parameter that treats the entire URL query string as a value which MUST be specified using the content field, most often with media type application/x-www-form-urlencoded using Encoding Objects in the same way as with request bodies of that media type; MUST NOT appear more than once, and MUST NOT appear in the same operation (or in the operation's path-item) as any in: "query" parameters.
• header - Custom headers that are expected as part of the request. Note that RFC9110 states header names are case-insensitive.
• cookie - Used to pass a specific cookie value to the API.

Fixed FieldsExample

The rules for serialization of the parameter are specified in one of two ways. Parameter Objects MUST include either a content field or a schema field, but not both. See Appendix B for a discussion of converting values of various types to string representations.

Common Fixed Fields

These fields MAY be used with either content or schema.

The example and examples fields are mutually exclusive; see Working with Examples for guidance on validation requirements.

Field Name	Type	Description
name	string	REQUIRED. The name of the parameter. Parameter names are case-sensitive. If in is "path", the name field MUST correspond to a single template expression occurring within the path field in the Paths Object. See Path Templating for further information. If in is "header" and the name field is "Accept", "Content-Type" or "Authorization", the parameter definition SHALL be ignored. If in is "querystring", or for certain combinations of style and explode, the value of name is not used in the parameter serialization. For all other cases, the name corresponds to the parameter name used by the in field.
in	string	REQUIRED. The location of the parameter. Possible values are "query", "querystring", "header", "path" or "cookie".
description	string	A brief description of the parameter. This could contain examples of use. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
required	boolean	Determines whether this parameter is mandatory. If the parameter location is "path", this field is REQUIRED and its value MUST be true. Otherwise, the field MAY be included and its default value is false.
deprecated	boolean	Specifies that a parameter is deprecated and SHOULD be transitioned out of usage. Default value is false.
allowEmptyValue	boolean	If true, clients MAY pass a zero-length string value in place of parameters that would otherwise be omitted entirely, which the server SHOULD interpret as the parameter being unused. Default value is false. If style is used, and if behavior is n/a (cannot be serialized), the value of allowEmptyValue SHALL be ignored. Interactions between this field and the parameter's Schema Object are implementation-defined. This field is valid only for query parameters. Deprecated: Use of this field is NOT RECOMMENDED, and it is likely to be removed in a later revision.
example	Any	Example of the parameter's potential value; see Working With Examples.
examples	Map[ string, Example Object | Reference Object]	Examples of the parameter's potential value; see Working With Examples.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Note that while "Cookie" as a name is not forbidden if in is "header", the effect of defining a cookie parameter that way is undefined; use in: "cookie" instead.

Fixed Fields for use with schema

For simpler scenarios, a schema and style can describe the structure and syntax of the parameter.

These fields MUST NOT be used with in: "querystring".

Care is needed for parameters with schema that have in: "header" or in: "cookie", style: "cookie":

• When serializing these values, URI percent-encoding MUST NOT be applied.
• When parsing these parameters, any apparent percent-encoding MUST NOT be decoded.
• If using an RFC6570 implementation that automatically performs encoding or decoding steps, the steps MUST be undone before use.

In these cases, implementations MUST pass values through unchanged rather than attempting to quote or escape them, as the quoting rules for headers and escaping conventions for cookies vary too widely to be performed automatically; see Appendix D for guidance on quoting and escaping.

Field Name	Type	Description
style	string	Describes how the parameter value will be serialized depending on the type of the parameter value. Default values (based on value of in): for "query" - "form"; for "path" - "simple"; for "header" - "simple"; for "cookie" - "form" (for compatibility reasons; note that style: "cookie" SHOULD be used with in: "cookie"; see Appendix D for details).
explode	boolean	When this is true, parameter values of type array or object generate separate parameters for each value of the array or key-value pair of the map. For other types of parameters, or when style is "deepObject", this field has no effect. When style is "form" or "cookie", the default value is true. For all other styles, the default value is false.
allowReserved	boolean	When this is true, parameter values are serialized using reserved expansion, as defined by RFC6570, which allows RFC3986's reserved character set, as well as percent-encoded triples, to pass through unchanged, while still percent-encoding all other disallowed characters (including % outside of percent-encoded triples). Applications are still responsible for percent-encoding reserved characters that are not allowed by the rules of the in destination or media type, or are not allowed in the path by this specification; see URL Percent-Encoding for details. The default value is false. This field only applies to in and style values that automatically percent-encode.
schema	Schema Object	The schema defining the type used for the parameter.

See also Appendix C: Using RFC6570-Based Serialization for additional guidance.

Fixed Fields for use with content

For more complex scenarios, the content field can define the media type and schema of the parameter, as well as give examples of its use.

For use with in: "querystring" and application/x-www-form-urlencoded, see Encoding the x-www-form-urlencoded Media Type.

Field Name	Type	Description
content	Map[string, Media Type Object | Reference Object]	A map containing the representations for the parameter. The key is the media type and the value describes it. The map MUST only contain one entry.

Style ValuesExample

In order to support common ways of serializing simple parameters, a set of style values are defined. Combinations not represented in this table are not permitted.

style	type	in	Comments
matrix	primitive, array, object	path	Path-style parameters defined by RFC6570
label	primitive, array, object	path	Label style parameters defined by RFC6570
simple	primitive, array, object	path, header	Simple style parameters defined by RFC6570. This option replaces collectionFormat with a csv value from OpenAPI 2.0.
form	primitive, array, object	query, cookie	Form style parameters defined by RFC6570. This option replaces collectionFormat with a csv (when explode is false) or multi (when explode is true) value from OpenAPI 2.0.
spaceDelimited	array, object	query	Space separated array values or object properties and values. This option replaces collectionFormat equal to ssv from OpenAPI 2.0.
pipeDelimited	array, object	query	Pipe separated array values or object properties and values. This option replaces collectionFormat equal to pipes from OpenAPI 2.0.
deepObject	object	query	Allows objects with scalar properties to be represented using form parameters. The representation of array or object properties is not defined (but see Extending Support for Querystring Formats for alternatives).
cookie	primitive, array, object	cookie	Analogous to form, but following [[RFC6265]] Cookie syntax rules, meaning that name-value pairs are separated by a semicolon followed by a single space (e.g. n1=v1; n2=v2), and no percent-encoding or other escaping is applied; data values that require any sort of escaping MUST be provided in escaped form.

URL Percent-EncodingExample

All API URLs MUST successfully parse and percent-decode using [[RFC3986]] rules.

Content in the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format, including query strings produced by Parameter Objects with in: "query", MUST also successfully parse and percent-decode using [[WHATWG-URL]] rules, including treating non-percent-encoded + as an escaped space character.

These requirements are specified in terms of percent-decoding rules, which are consistently tolerant across different versions of the various standards that apply to URIs.

Percent-encoding is performed in several places:

• By [[RFC6570]] implementations (or simulations thereof; see Appendix C)
• By the Parameter or Encoding Objects when incorporating a value serialized with a Media Type Object for a media type that does not already incorporate URI percent-encoding
• By the user, prior to passing data through RFC6570's reserved expansion process

When percent-encoding, the safest approach is to percent-encode all characters not in RFC3986's "unreserved" set, and for form-urlencoded to also percent-encode the tilde character (~) to align with historical requirements that are traced back to [[?RFC1738]], the URI RFC at the time form-urlencoded was created. This approach is used in examples in this specification.

For form-urlencoded, while the encoding algorithm given by [[WHATWG-URL]] requires escaping the space character as +, percent-encoding it as %20 also meets the above requirements. Examples in this specification will prefer %20 when using RFC6570's default (non-reserved) form-style expansion, and + otherwise.

Reserved characters MUST NOT be percent-encoded when being used for reserved purposes such as &=+ for form-urlencoded or , for delimiting non-exploded array and object values in RFC6570 expansions. The result of inserting non-percent-encoded delimiters into data using manual percent-encoding, including via RFC6570's reserved expansion rules, is undefined and will likely prevent implementations from parsing the results back into the correct data structures. In some cases, such as inserting / into path parameter values, doing so is explicitly forbidden by this specification.

See also:

• Appendix C for guidance on using or simulating/extending RFC6570 implementations.
• Appendix D for guidance on percent-encoding and cookies, as well as other escaping approaches for headers and cookies.
• Appendix E for a thorough discussion of percent-encoding options, compatibility, and handling OAS-defined delimiters that are not allowed by RFC3986.

Serialization and ExamplesExample

The rules in this section apply to both the Parameter and Header Objects, both of which use the same mechanisms.

When showing serialized examples, such as with the Example Object's serializedValue or externalValue fields, in most cases the value to show is just the value, with all relevant percent-encoding or other encoding/escaping applied, and also including any delimiters produced by the style and explode configuration.

In cases where the name is an inherent part of constructing the serialization, such as the name=value pairs produced by style: "form" or the combination of style: "simple", explode: true, the name and any delimiter between the name and value MUST be included.

The matrix and label styles produce a leading delimiter which is always a valid part of the serialization and MUST be included. The RFC6570 operators corresponding to style: "form" produce a leading delimiter of either ? or & depending on the exact syntax used. As the suitability of either delimiter depends on where in the query string the parameter occurs, as well as whether it is in a URI or in application/x-www-form-urlencoded content, this leading delimiter MUST NOT be included in examples of individual parameters or media type documents. For in: "cookie", style: "form", neither the & nor ? delimiters are ever correct; see Appendix D: Serializing Headers and Cookies for more details.

For headers, the header name MUST NOT be included as part of the serialization, as it is never part of the RFC6570-derived result. However, names produced by style: "simple", explode: "true" are included as they appear within the header value, not as separate headers. See the Header Object for special rules for showing examples of the Set-Cookie response header, which violates the normal rules for multiple header values.

Style ExamplesExample

Assume a parameter named color has one of the following values, where the value to the right of the -> is what would be shown in the dataValue field of an Example Object:

   string -> "blue"
   array -> ["blue", "black", "brown"]
   object -> { "R": 100, "G": 200, "B": 150 }

The following table shows serialized examples, as would be shown with the serializedValue field of an Example Object, of the different serializations for each value.

• The value empty denotes the empty string, and is unrelated to the allowEmptyValue field.
• The behavior of combinations marked n/a is undefined.
• The undefined column replaces the empty column in previous versions of this specification in order to better align with RFC6570 terminology, which describes certain values including but not limited to null as "undefined" values with special handling; notably, the empty string is not undefined.
• For form and the non-RFC6570 query string styles spaceDelimited, pipeDelimited, and deepObject, see Appendix C for more information on constructing query strings from multiple parameters, and Appendix D for warnings regarding form and cookie parameters.
• The examples are percent-encoded as explained in the URL Percent-Encoding section above; see Appendix E for a thorough discussion of percent-encoding concerns, including why unencoded | (%7C), [ (%5B), and ] (%5D) seem to work in some environments despite not being compliant.

style	explode	undefined	string	array	object
matrix	false	;color	;color=blue	;color=blue,black,brown	;color=R,100,G,200,B,150
matrix	true	;color	;color=blue	;color=blue;color=black;color=brown	;R=100;G=200;B=150
label	false	.	.blue	.blue,black,brown	.R,100,G,200,B,150
label	true	.	.blue	.blue.black.brown	.R=100.G=200.B=150
simple	false	empty	blue	blue,black,brown	R,100,G,200,B,150
simple	true	empty	blue	blue,black,brown	R=100,G=200,B=150
form	false	color=	color=blue	color=blue,black,brown	color=R,100,G,200,B,150
form	true	color=	color=blue	color=blue&color=black&color=brown	R=100&G=200&B=150
spaceDelimited	false	n/a	n/a	color=blue%20black%20brown	color=R%20100%20G%20200%20B%20150
spaceDelimited	true	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
pipeDelimited	false	n/a	n/a	color=blue%7Cblack%7Cbrown	color=R%7C100%7CG%7C200%7CB%7C150
pipeDelimited	true	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
deepObject	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	color%5BR%5D=100&color%5BG%5D=200&color%5BB%5D=150
cookie	false	color=	color=blue	color=blue,black,brown	color=R,100,G,200,B,150
cookie	true	color=	color=blue	color=blue; color=black; color=brown	R=100; G=200; B=150

Extending Support for Querystring FormatsExample

Many frameworks define query string syntax for complex values, such as appending array indices to parameter names or indicating multiple levels of of nested objects, which go well beyond the capabilities of the deepObject style.

As these are not standards, and often contradict each other, the OAS does not attempt to support them directly. Two avenues are available for supporting such formats with in: "querystring":

• Use content and text/plain with a schema of type: "string" and define the format outside of OpenAPI. While this requires more work to document and construct or parse the format, which is seen as a plain string from the OpenAPI perspective, it provides the easiest flexible option
• Define a media type (which need not necessarily be IANA-registered) and a process for mapping in-memory data to the serialized media type. To increase the likelihood of support across multiple tools, submit a registration for the media type and process to the OpenAPI Initiative's Media Type Registry.

Parameter Object ExamplesExample

A header parameter with an array of 64-bit integer numbers:

name: X-Token
in: header
description: token to be passed as a header
required: true
schema:
  type: array
  items:
    type: integer
    format: int64
style: simple
examples:
  Tokens:
    dataValue:
      - 12345678
      - 90099
    serializedValue: "12345678,90099"

A cookie parameter with an exploded object (the default for style: "cookie"):

name: cookie
in: cookie
style: cookie
schema:
  type: object
  properties:
    greeting:
      type: string
    code:
      type: integer
      minimum: 0
examples:
  Object:
    description: |
        Note that the comma (,) has been pre-percent-encoded
        to "%2C" in the data, as it is forbidden in
        cookie values.  However, the exclamation point (!)
        is legal in cookies, so it can be left unencoded.
    dataValue:
      greeting: Hello%2C world!
      code: 42
    serializedValue: "greeting=Hello%2C world!; code=42"

A cookie parameter relying on the percent-encoding behavior of the default style: "form":

name: greeting
in: cookie
schema:
  type: string
examples:
  Greeting:
    description: |
      Note that in this approach, RFC6570's percent-encoding
      process applies, so unsafe characters are not
      pre-percent-encoded.  This results in all non-URL-safe
      characters, rather than just the one non-cookie-safe
      character, getting percent-encoded.
    dataValue: Hello, world!
    serializedValue: "greeting=Hello%2C%20world%21"

A path parameter of a string value:

name: username
in: path
description: username to fetch
required: true
schema:
  type: string
examples:
  "Edsger Dijkstra":
    dataValue: edijkstra
    serializedValue: edijkstra
  Diṅnāga:
    dataValue: diṅnāga
    serializedValue: di%E1%B9%85n%C4%81ga
  Al-Khwarizmi:
    dataValue: "الخوارزميّ"
    serializedValue: "%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%91"

An optional query parameter of a string value, allowing multiple values by repeating the query parameter (Note that we use "%20" in place of " " (space) because that is how RFC6570 handles it; for guidance on using + to represent the space character, see Appendix E for more guidance on these escaping options):

name: thing
in: query
required: false
schema:
  type: array
  items:
    type: string
style: form
explode: true
examples:
  ObjectList:
    dataValue:
      - one thing
      - another thing
    serializedValue: "thing=one%20thing&thing=another%20thing"

A free-form query parameter, allowing arbitrary parameters of type: "integer":

in: query
name: freeForm
schema:
  type: object
  additionalProperties:
    type: integer
style: form
examples:
  Pagination:
    dataValue:
      page: 4
      pageSize: 50
    serializeValue: page=4&pageSize=50

A complex parameter using content to define serialization, with multiple levels and types of examples shown to make the example usage options clear — note that dataValue is the same at both levels and does not need to be shown in both places in normal usage, but serializedValue is different:

in: query
name: coordinates
content:
  application/json:
    schema:
      type: object
      required:
        - lat
        - long
      properties:
        lat:
          type: number
        long:
          type: number
    examples:
      dataValue:
        lat: 10
        long: 60
      serializedValue: '{"lat":10,"long":60}'
examples:
  dataValue:
    lat: 10
    long: 60
  serializedValue: coordinates=%7B%22lat%22%3A10%2C%22long%22%3A60%7D

A querystring parameter using regular form encoding, but managed with a Media Type Object. This shows spaces being handled per the application/x-www-form-urlencoded media type rules (encode as +) rather than the RFC6570 process (encode as %20); see Appendix E for further guidance on this distinction. Examples are shown at both the media type and parameter level to emphasize that, since application/x-www-form-urlencoded is suitable for use in query strings by definition, no further encoding or escaping is applied to the serialized media type value:

in: querystring
content:
  application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
    schema:
      type: object
      properties:
        foo:
          type: string
        bar:
          type: boolean
    examples:
      spacesAndPluses:
        description: Note handling of spaces and "+" per media type.
        dataValue:
          foo: a + b
          bar: true
        serializedValue: foo=a+%2B+b&bar=true
examples:
  spacesAndPluses:
    description: |
      Note that no additional percent encoding is done, as this
      media type is URI query string-ready by definition.
    dataValue:
      foo: a + b
      bar: true
    serializedValue: foo=a+%2B+b&bar=true

A querystring parameter that uses JSON for the entire string (not as a single query parameter value). The dataValue field is shown at both levels to fully illustrate both ways of providing an example. As seen below, this is redundant and need not be done in practice:

in: querystring
name: json
content:
  application/json:
    schema:
      type: object
      properties:
        numbers:
          type: array
          items:
            type: integer
        flag:
          type: [boolean, "null"]
    examples:
      TwoNoFlag:
        description: Serialize with minimized whitespace
        dataValue:
          numbers:
            - 1
            - 2
          flag: null
        serializedValue: '{"numbers":[1,2],"flag":null}'
examples:
  TwoNoFlag:
    dataValue:
      numbers:
        - 1
        - 2
      flag: null
    serializedValue: "%7B%22numbers%22%3A%5B1%2C2%5D%2C%22flag%22%3Anull%7D"

Assuming a path of /foo, a server of https://example.com, the full URL incorporating the value from serializedValue would be:

https://example.com/foo?%7B%22numbers%22%3A%5B1%2C2%5D%2C%22flag%22%3Anull%7D

A querystring parameter that uses [[?RFC9535|JSONPath]]. Note that in this example we not only do not repeat dataValue, but we use the shorthand example because the application/jsonpath value is a string that, at the media type level, is serialized as-is:

in: querystring
name: selector
content:
  application/jsonpath:
    schema:
      type: string
    example: $.a.b[1:1]
examples:
  Selector:
    serializedValue: "%24.a.b%5B1%3A1%5D"

As there is not, as of this writing, a registered mapping between the JSON Schema data model and JSONPath, the details of the string's allowed structure would need to be conveyed either in a human-readable description field, or through a mechanism outside of the OpenAPI Description, such as a JSON Schema for the data structure to be queried.

Assuming a path of /foo and a server of https://example.com, the full URL incorporating the value from serializedValue would be:

https://example.com/foo?%24.a.b%5B1%3A1%5D

Request Body ObjectExample

Describes a single request body.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
description	string	A brief description of the request body. This could contain examples of use. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
content	Map[string, Media Type Object | Reference Object]	REQUIRED. The content of the request body. The key is a media type or media type range and the value describes it. The map SHOULD have at least one entry; if it does not, the behavior is implementation-defined. For requests that match multiple keys, only the most specific key is applicable. e.g. "text/plain" overrides "text/*"
required	boolean	Determines if the request body is required in the request. Defaults to false.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Request Body ExamplesExample

A request body with a referenced schema definition.

description: user to add to the system
content:
  application/json:
    schema:
      $ref: '#/components/schemas/User'
    examples:
      user:
        summary: User example
        externalValue: https://foo.bar/examples/user-example.json
  application/xml:
    schema:
      $ref: '#/components/schemas/User'
    examples:
      user:
        summary: User example in XML
        externalValue: https://foo.bar/examples/user-example.xml
  text/plain:
    examples:
      user:
        summary: User example in plain text
        externalValue: https://foo.bar/examples/user-example.txt
  '*/*':
    examples:
      user:
        summary: User example in other format
        externalValue: https://foo.bar/examples/user-example.whatever

Media Type ObjectExample

Each Media Type Object describes content structured in accordance with the media type identified by its key. Multiple Media Type Objects can be used to describe content that can appear in any of several different media types.

When example or examples are provided, the example SHOULD match the specified schema and be in the correct format as specified by the media type and its encoding. The example and examples fields are mutually exclusive. See Working With Examples for further guidance regarding the different ways of specifying examples, including non-JSON/YAML values.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
schema	Schema Object	A schema describing the complete content of the request, response, parameter, or header.
itemSchema	Schema Object	A schema describing each item within a sequential media type.
example	Any	Example of the media type; see Working With Examples.
examples	Map[ string, Example Object | Reference Object]	Examples of the media type; see Working With Examples.
encoding	Map[string, Encoding Object]	A map between a property name and its encoding information, as defined under Encoding By Name. The encoding field SHALL only apply when the media type is multipart or application/x-www-form-urlencoded. If no Encoding Object is provided for a property, the behavior is determined by the default values documented for the Encoding Object. This field MUST NOT be present if prefixEncoding or itemEncoding are present.
prefixEncoding	[Encoding Object]	An array of positional encoding information, as defined under Encoding By Position. The prefixEncoding field SHALL only apply when the media type is multipart. If no Encoding Object is provided for a property, the behavior is determined by the default values documented for the Encoding Object. This field MUST NOT be present if encoding is present.
itemEncoding	Encoding Object	A single Encoding Object that provides encoding information for multiple array items, as defined under Encoding By Position. The itemEncoding field SHALL only apply when the media type is multipart. If no Encoding Object is provided for a property, the behavior is determined by the default values documented for the Encoding Object. This field MUST NOT be present if encoding is present.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Media TypesExample

Media types are publicly registered with the IANA media types registry, through process documented in [[?RFC6838]].

APIs also sometimes define private media types such as GitHub's application/vnd.github.v3+json, which are not registered, and other media types such as application/schema+json become widely used before an intended registration.

See Parsing and Serializing under the Schema Object for guidance on using schemas with a variety of media types.

OpenAPI Media Type Registry

The OpenAPI Initiative maintains a Media Type Registry summarizing media type support expected by this specification and providing an index to which sections address which media types. It also links to IANA registrations (where they exist) and to the most notable specification document(s) related to each media type. Any additional media types added to this registry as extensions or for later versions of this or other OpenAPI specifications MAY be supported by implementations of this version of the OAS.

Complete vs Streaming ContentExample

The schema field MUST be applied to the complete content, as defined by the media type and the context (Request Body Object, Response Object, Parameter Object, or Header Object. Because this requires loading the content into memory in its entirety, it poses a challenge for streamed content. Use cases where clients are intended to choose when to stop reading are particularly challenging as there is no well-defined end to the stream.

Sequential Media Types

Within this specification, a sequential media type is defined as any media type that consists of a repeating structure, without any sort of header, footer, envelope, or other metadata in addition to the sequence.

Some examples of sequential media types (including some that are not IANA-registered but are in common use) are:

  application/jsonl
  application/x-ndjson
  application/json-seq
  application/geo+json-seq
  text/event-stream
  multipart/mixed

In the first three above, the repeating structure is any JSON value. The fourth repeats application/geo+json-structured values, while text/event-stream repeats a custom text format related to Server-Sent Events. The final media type listed above, multipart/mixed, provides an ordered list of documents of any media type, and is sometimes streamed. Note that while multipart formats technically allow a preamble and an epilogue, the RFC directs that they are to be ignored, making them effectively comments, and this specification does not model them.

Implementations MUST support mapping sequential media types into the JSON Schema data model by treating them as if the values were in an array in the same order.

See Complete vs Streaming Content for more information on handling sequential media types in a streaming context, including special considerations for text/event-stream content. For multipart types, see also Encoding By Position.

Streaming Sequential Media Types

The itemSchema field is provided to support streaming use cases for sequential media types, with itemEncoding as a corresponding encoding mechanism for streaming positional multipart media types.

Unlike schema, which is applied to the complete content (treated as an array as described in the sequential media types section), itemSchema MUST be applied to each item in the stream independently, which supports processing each item as it is read from the stream.

Both schema and itemSchema MAY be used in the same Media Type Object. However, doing so is unlikely to have significant advantages over using the items keyword within the schema field.

Binary Streams

The maxLength keyword MAY be used to set an expected upper bound on the length of a streaming payload that consists of either string data, including encoded binary data, or unencoded binary data. For unencoded binary data, the length is the number of octets. For this use case, maxLength MAY be implemented outside of regular JSON Schema evaluation as JSON Schema does not directly apply to binary data, and an encoded binary stream may be impractical to store in memory in its entirety.

Special Considerations for Server-Sent EventsExample

For text/event-stream, implementations MUST work with event data after it has been parsed according to the text/event-stream specification, including all guidance on ignoring certain fields (including comments) and/or values, and on combining values split across multiple lines.

Field value types MUST be handled as specified by the text/event-stream specification (e.g. the retry field value is modeled as a JSON number that is expected to be of JSON Schema type: integer), and fields not given an explicit value type MUST be handled as strings.

Some users of text/event-stream use a format such as JSON for field values, particularly the data field. Use JSON Schema's keywords for working with the contents of string-encoded data, particularly contentMediaType and contentSchema, to describe and validate such fields with more detail than string-related validation keywords such as pattern can support. Note that contentSchema is not automatically validated by default (see also the Non-validating constraint keywords section of this specification).

The following Schema Object is a generic schema for the text/event-stream media type as documented by the [[?HTML]] specification as of the time of this writing:

type: object
required:
- data
properties:
  data:
    type: string
  event:
    type: string
  id:
    type: string
  retry:
    type: integer
    minimum: 0

Encoding Usage and RestrictionsExample

These encoding fields define how to map each Encoding Object to a specific value in the data. Each field has its own set of media types with which it can be used; for all other media types all three fields SHALL be ignored.

Encoding By Name

The behavior of the encoding field is designed to support web forms, and is therefore only defined for media types structured as name-value pairs that allow repeat values, most notably application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data.

To use the encoding field, each key under the field MUST exist as a property; encoding entries with no corresponding property SHALL be ignored. Array properties MUST be handled by applying the given Encoding Object to produce one encoded value per array item, each with the same name, as is recommended by [[!RFC7578]] Section 4.3 for supplying multiple values per form field. For all other value types for both top-level non-array properties and for values, including array values, within a top-level array, the Encoding Object MUST be applied to the entire value. The order of these name-value pairs in the target media type is implementation-defined.

For application/x-www-form-urlencoded, the encoding keys MUST map to parameter names, with the values produced according to the rules of the Encoding Object. See Encoding the x-www-form-urlencoded Media Type for guidance and examples, both with and without the encoding field.

For multipart, the encoding keys MUST map to the name parameter of the Content-Disposition: form-data header of each part, as is defined for multipart/form-data in [[!RFC7578]]. See [[!RFC7578]] Section 5 for guidance regarding non-ASCII part names.

See Encoding multipart Media Types for further guidance and examples, both with and without the encoding field.

Encoding By Position

Most multipart media types, including multipart/mixed which defines the underlying rules for parsing all multipart types, do not have named parts. Data for these media types are modeled as an array, with one item per part, in order.

To use the prefixEncoding and/or itemEncoding fields, either itemSchema or an array schema MUST be present. These fields are analogous to the prefixItems and items JSON Schema keywords, with prefixEncoding (if present) providing an array of Encoding Objects that are each applied to the value at the same position in the data array, and itemEncoding applying its single Encoding Object to all remaining items in the array. As with prefixItems, it is not an error if the instance array is shorter than the prefixEncoding array; the additional Encoding Objects SHALL be ignored.

The itemEncoding field can also be used with itemSchema to support streaming multipart content.

Additional Encoding Approaches

The prefixEncoding field can be used with any multipart content to require a fixed part order. This includes multipart/form-data, for which the Encoding Object's headers field MUST be used to provide the Content-Disposition and part name, as no property names exist to provide the names automatically.

Prior versions of this specification advised using the name parameter of the Content-Disposition: form-data header of each part with multipart media types other than multipart/form-data in order to work around the limitations of the encoding field. Implementations MAY choose to support this workaround, but as this usage is not common, implementations of non-form-data multipart media types are unlikely to support it.

Media Type ExamplesExample

For form-related and multipart media type examples, see the Encoding Object.

JSON

Note that since this example is written in YAML, the Example Object's value field can be formatted as YAML due to the trivial conversion to JSON. This avoids needing to embed JSON as a string.

application/json:
  schema:
    $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
  examples:
    cat:
      summary: An example of a cat
      value:
        name: Fluffy
        petType: Cat
        color: White
        gender: male
        breed: Persian
    dog:
      summary: An example of a dog with a cat's name
      value:
        name: Puma
        petType: Dog
        color: Black
        gender: Female
        breed: Mixed
    frog:
      $ref: '#/components/examples/frog-example'

Alternatively, since all JSON is valid YAML, the example value can use JSON syntax within a YAML document:

application/json:
  schema:
    $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
  examples:
    cat:
      summary: An example of a cat
      value: {
        "name": "Fluffy",
        "petType": "Cat",
        "color": "White",
        "gender": "male",
        "breed": "Persian"
      }
    dog:
      summary: An example of a dog with a cat's name
      value: {
        "name": "Puma",
        "petType": "Dog",
        "color": "Black",
        "gender": "Female",
        "breed": "Mixed"
      }
    frog:
      $ref: '#/components/examples/frog-example'

Sequential JSON

For any sequential media type where the items in the sequence are JSON values, no conversion of each value is required. JSON Text Sequences ([[?RFC7464]] application/json-seq and [[?RFC8091]] the +json-seq structured suffix), JSON Lines (application/jsonl), and NDJSON (application/x-ndjson) are all in this category. Note that the media types for JSON Lines and NDJSON are not registered with the IANA, but are in common use.

The following example shows Media Type Objects for both streaming log entries and returning a fixed-length set in response to a query. This shows the relationship between schema and itemSchema, and when to use each even though the examples field is the same either way.

components:
  schemas:
    LogEntry:
      type: object
      properties:
        timestamp:
          type: string
          format: date-time
        level:
          type: integer
          minimum: 0
        message:
          type: string
    Log:
      type: array
      items:
        $ref: "#/components/schemas/LogEntry"
      maxItems: 100
  examples:
    LogJSONSeq:
      summary: Log entries in application/json-seq
      # JSON Text Sequences require an unprintable character
      # that cannot be escaped in a YAML string, and therefore
      # must be placed in an external document shown below
      externalValue: examples/log.json-seq
    LogJSONPerLine:
      summary: Log entries in application/jsonl or application/x-ndjson
      description: JSONL and NDJSON are identical for this example
      # Note that the value must be written as a string with newlines,
      # as JSONL and NDJSON are not valid YAML
      value: |
        {"timestamp": "1985-04-12T23:20:50.52Z", "level": 1, "message": "Hi!"}
        {"timestamp": "1985-04-12T23:20:51.37Z", "level": 1, "message": "Bye!"}
  responses:
    LogStream:
      description: |
        A stream of JSON-format log messages that can be read
        for as long as the application is running, and is available
        in any of the sequential JSON media types.
      content:
        application/json-seq:
          itemSchema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/LogEntry"
          examples:
            JSON-SEQ:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONSeq"
        application/jsonl:
          itemSchema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/LogEntry"
          examples:
            JSONL:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONPerLine"
        application/x-ndjson:
          itemSchema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/LogEntry"
          examples:
            NDJSON:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONPerLine"
    LogExcerpt:
      description: |
        A response consisting of no more than 100 log records,
        generally as a result of a query of the historical log,
        available in any of the sequential JSON media types.
      content:
        application/json-seq:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/Log"
          examples:
            JSON-SEQ:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONSeq"
        application/jsonl:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/Log"
          examples:
            JSONL:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONPerLine"
        application/x-ndjson:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/Log"
          examples:
            NDJSON:
              $ref: "#/components/examples/LogJSONPerLine"

Our application/json-seq example has to be an external document because of the use of both newlines and of the unprintable Record Separator (0x1E) character, which cannot be escaped in YAML block literals:

0x1E{
  "timestamp": "1985-04-12T23:20:50.52Z",
  "level": 1,
  "message": "Hi!"
}
0x1E{
  "timestamp": "1985-04-12T23:20:51.37Z",
  "level": 1,
  "message": "Bye!"
}

Server-Sent Event Streams

For this example, assume that the generic event schema provided in the Special Considerations for Server-Sent Events section is available at #/components/schemas/Event:

description: A request body to add a stream of typed data.
required: true
content:
  text/event-stream:
    itemSchema:
      $ref: "#/components/schemas/Event"
      required: [event]
      oneOf:
      - properties:
          event:
            const: addString
      - properties:
          event:
            const: addInt64
          data:
            $comment: |
              Since the `data` field is a string,
              we need a format to signal that it
              should be handled as a 64-bit integer.
            format: int64
      - properties:
          event:
            const: addJson
          data:
            $comment: |
              These content fields indicate
              that the string value should
              be parsed and validated as a
              JSON document (since JSON is not
              a binary format, `contentEncoding`
              is not needed)
            contentMediaType: application/json
            contentSchema:
              type: object
              required: [foo]
              properties:
                foo:
                  type: integer

The following text/event-stream document is an example of a valid request body for the above example:

event: addString
data: This data is formatted
data: across two lines
retry: 5

event: addInt64
data: 1234.5678
unknownField: this is ignored

: This is a comment
event: addJSON
data: {"foo": 42}

To more clearly see how this stream is handled, the following is the equivalent JSON Lines document, which shows how the numeric and JSON data are handled as strings, and how unknown fields and comments are ignored and not passed to schema validation:

{"event": "addString", "data": "This data is formatted\nacross two lines", "retry": 5}
{"event": "addInt64", "data": "1234.5678"}
{"event": "addJSON", "data": "{\"foo\": 42}"}

Considerations for File UploadsExample

In contrast to OpenAPI 2.0, file input/output content in OAS 3.x is described with the same semantics as any other schema type.

In contrast to OAS 3.0, the format keyword has no effect on the content-encoding of the schema in OAS 3.1. Instead, JSON Schema's contentEncoding and contentMediaType keywords are used. See Working With Binary Data for how to model various scenarios with these keywords, and how to migrate from the previous format usage.

Examples:

Content transferred in binary (octet-stream) MAY omit schema:

# a PNG image as a binary file:
content:
  image/png: {}

# an arbitrary binary file:
content:
  application/octet-stream: {}

# arbitrary JSON without constraints beyond being syntactically valid:
content:
  application/json: {}

These examples apply to either input payloads of file uploads or response payloads.

A requestBody for submitting a file in a POST operation may look like the following example:

requestBody:
  content:
    application/octet-stream: {}

In addition, specific media types MAY be specified:

# multiple, specific media types may be specified:
requestBody:
  content:
    # a binary file of type png or jpeg
    image/jpeg: {}
    image/png: {}

To upload multiple files, a multipart media type MUST be used as shown under Example: Multipart Form with Multiple Files.

Encoding ObjectExample

A single encoding definition applied to a single value, with the mapping of Encoding Objects to values determined by the Media Type Object as described under Encoding Usage and Restrictions.

See Appendix B for a discussion of converting values of various types to string representations.

See Appendix E for a detailed examination of percent-encoding concerns for form media types.

Fixed FieldsExample

Common Fixed Fields

These fields MAY be used either with or without the RFC6570-style serialization fields defined in the next section below.

Field Name	Type	Description
contentType	string	The Content-Type for encoding a specific property. The value is a comma-separated list, each element of which is either a specific media type (e.g. image/png) or a wildcard media type (e.g. image/*). The default value depends on the type as shown in the table below.
headers	Map[string, Header Object | Reference Object]	A map allowing additional information to be provided as headers. Content-Type is described separately and SHALL be ignored in this section. This field SHALL be ignored if the media type is not a multipart.
encoding	Map[string, Encoding Object]	Applies nested Encoding Objects in the same manner as the Media Type Object's encoding field.
prefixEncoding	[Encoding Object]	Applies nested Encoding Objects in the same manner as the Media Type Object's prefixEncoding field.
itemEncoding	Encoding Object	Applies nested Encoding Objects in the same manner as the Media Type Object's itemEncoding field.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

The default values for contentType are as follows, where an n/a in the contentEncoding column means that the presence or value of contentEncoding is irrelevant. This table is based on the value to which the Encoding Object is being applied as defined under Encoding Usage and Restrictions. Note that in the case of Encoding By Name, this value is the array item for properties of type "array", and the entire value for all other types. Therefore the array row in this table applies only to array values inside of a top-level array when encoding by name.

type	contentEncoding	Default contentType
absent	n/a	application/octet-stream
string	present	application/octet-stream
string	absent	text/plain
number, integer, or boolean	n/a	text/plain
object	n/a	application/json
array	n/a	application/json

Determining how to handle a type value of null depends on how null values are being serialized. If null values are entirely omitted, then the contentType is irrelevant. See Appendix B for a discussion of data type conversion options.

Fixed Fields for RFC6570-style Serialization

Field Name	Type	Description
style	string	Describes how a specific property value will be serialized depending on its type. See Parameter Object for details on the style field. The behavior follows the same values as query parameters, including the default value of "form" which applies only when contentType is not being used due to one or both of explode or allowReserved being explicitly specified. Note that the initial ? used in query strings is not used in application/x-www-form-urlencoded message bodies, and MUST be removed (if using an RFC6570 implementation) or simply not added (if constructing the string manually). This field SHALL be ignored if the media type is not application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data. If a value is explicitly defined, then the value of contentType (implicit or explicit) SHALL be ignored.
explode	boolean	When this is true, property values of type array or object generate separate parameters for each value of the array, or key-value-pair of the map. For other types of properties, or when style is "deepObject", this field has no effect. When style is "form", the default value is true. For all other styles, the default value is false. This field SHALL be ignored if the media type is not application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data. If a value is explicitly defined, then the value of contentType (implicit or explicit) SHALL be ignored.
allowReserved	boolean	When this is true, parameter values are serialized using reserved expansion, as defined by RFC6570, which allows RFC3986's reserved character set, as well as percent-encoded triples, to pass through unchanged, while still percent-encoding all other disallowed characters (including % outside of percent-encoded triples). Applications are still responsible for percent-encoding reserved characters that are not allowed in the target media type; see URL Percent-Encoding for details. The default value is false. This field SHALL be ignored if the media type is not application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data. If a value is explicitly defined, then the value of contentType (implicit or explicit) SHALL be ignored.

When using RFC6570-style serialization for multipart/form-data, URI percent-encoding MUST NOT be applied, and the value of allowReserved has no effect. See also Appendix C: Using RFC6570 Implementations for additional guidance.

Note that the presence of at least one of style, explode, or allowReserved with an explicit value is equivalent to using schema with in: "query" Parameter Objects. The absence of all three of those fields is the equivalent of using content, but with the media type specified in contentType rather than through a Media Type Object.

Nested EncodingExample

Nested formats requiring encoding, most notably nested multipart/mixed, can be supported with this Object's encoding, prefixEncoding, and / or itemEncoding fields. Implementations MUST support one level of nesting, and MAY support additional levels.

Encoding the x-www-form-urlencoded Media TypeExample

To work with content using form url encoding via [[WHATWG-URL]], use the application/x-www-form-urlencoded media type in the Media Type Object. This configuration means that the content MUST be percent-encoded per [[WHATWG-URL]]'s rules for that media type, after any complex objects have been serialized to a string representation.

See Appendix E for a detailed examination of percent-encoding concerns for form media types.

Example: URL Encoded Form with JSON Values

When there is no encoding field, the serialization strategy is based on the Encoding Object's default values:

requestBody:
  content:
    application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
      schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          id:
            type: string
            format: uuid
          address:
            type: object
            properties: {}

With this example, consider an id of f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6 and a US-style address (with ZIP+4) as follows:

{
  "streetAddress": "123 Example Dr.",
  "city": "Somewhere",
  "state": "CA",
  "zip": "99999+1234"
}

Assuming the most compact representation of the JSON value (with unnecessary whitespace removed), we would expect to see the following request body, where space characters have been replaced with + and +, ", :, ,, {, and } have been percent-encoded to %2B, %22, %3A, %2C, %7B, and %7D, respectively:

id=f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6&address=%7B%22streetAddress%22%3A%22123+Example+Dr.%22%2C%22city%22%3A%22Somewhere%22%2C%22state%22%3A%22CA%22%2C%22zip%22%3A%2299999%2B1234%22%7D

Note that the id keyword is treated as text/plain per the Encoding Object's default behavior, and is serialized as-is. If it were treated as application/json, then the serialized value would be a JSON string including quotation marks, which would be percent-encoded as %22.

Here is the id parameter (without address) serialized as application/json instead of text/plain, and then encoded per [[WHATWG-URL]]'s form-urlencoded rules:

id=%22f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6%22

Example: URL Encoded Form with Binary Values

Note that application/x-www-form-urlencoded is a text format, which requires base64-encoding any binary data:

requestBody:
  content:
    application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
      schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          name:
            type: string
          icon:
            # The default content type with `contentEncoding` present
            # is `application/octet-stream`, so we need to set the correct
            # image media type(s) in the Encoding Object.
            type: string
            contentEncoding: base64url
  encoding:
    icon:
      contentType: image/png, image/jpeg

Given a name of example and a solid red 2x2-pixel PNG for icon, this would produce a request body of:

name=example&icon=iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAIAAAACCAIAAAD91JpzAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC_xhBQAAADhlWElmTU0AKgAAAAgAAYdpAAQAAAABAAAAGgAAAAAAAqACAAQAAAABAAAAAqADAAQAAAABAAAAAgAAAADO0J6QAAAAEElEQVQIHWP8zwACTGCSAQANHQEDqtPptQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg%3D%3D

Note that the = padding characters at the end need to be percent-encoded, even with the "URL safe" contentEncoding: base64url. Some base64-decoding implementations may be able to use the string without the padding per RFC4648. However, this is not guaranteed, so it may be more interoperable to keep the padding and rely on percent-decoding.

Encoding multipart Media TypesExample

See Encoding Usage and Restrictions for guidance on correlating schema properties with parts.

Note that there are significant restrictions on what headers can be used with multipart media types in general (RFC2046) and multi-part/form-data in particular (RFC7578).

Handling Multiple contentType Values

When multiple values are provided for contentType, parsing remains straightforward as the part's actual Content-Type is included in the document.

For encoding and serialization, implementations MUST provide a mechanism for applications to indicate which media type is intended. Implementations MAY choose to offer media type sniffing ([[SNIFF]]) as an alternative, but this MUST NOT be the default behavior due to the security risks inherent in the process.

Content-Transfer-Encoding and contentEncoding

Using contentEncoding for a multipart field is equivalent to specifying an Encoding Object with a headers field containing Content-Transfer-Encoding with a schema that requires the value used in contentEncoding. If contentEncoding is used for a multipart field that has an Encoding Object with a headers field containing Content-Transfer-Encoding with a schema that disallows the value from contentEncoding, the result is undefined for serialization and parsing.

Note that as stated in Working with Binary Data, if the Encoding Object's contentType, whether set explicitly or implicitly through its default value rules, disagrees with the contentMediaType in a Schema Object, the contentMediaType SHALL be ignored. Because of this, and because the Encoding Object's contentType defaulting rules do not take the Schema Object'scontentMediaType into account, the use of contentMediaType with an Encoding Object is NOT RECOMMENDED.

Note also that Content-Transfer-Encoding is deprecated for multipart/form-data (RFC7578) where binary data is supported, as it is in HTTP.

See Appendix E for a detailed examination of percent-encoding concerns for form media types.

Example: Basic Multipart Form

When the encoding field is not used, the encoding is determined by the Encoding Object's defaults:

requestBody:
  content:
    multipart/form-data:
      schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          # default content type for a string without `contentEncoding`
          # is `text/plain`
          id:
            type: string
            format: uuid

          # default content type for a schema without `type`
          # is `application/octet-stream`
          profileImage: {}

          # for arrays, the `encoding` field applies the Encoding Object
          # to each item individually and determines the default content type
          # based on the type in the `items` subschema, which in this example
          # is an object, so the default content type for each item is
          # `application/json`
          addresses:
            type: array
            items:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/Address'

Example: Multipart Form with Encoding Objects

Using encoding, we can set more specific types for binary data, or non-JSON formats for complex values. We can also describe headers for each part:

requestBody:
  content:
    multipart/form-data:
      schema:
        type: object
        properties:
          # No Encoding Object, so use default `text/plain`
          id:
            type: string
            format: uuid

          # Encoding Object overrides the default `application/json` content type
          # for each item in the array with `application/xml; charset=utf-8`
          addresses:
            description: addresses in XML format
            type: array
            items:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/Address'

          # Encoding Object accepts only PNG or JPEG, and also describes
          # a custom header for just this part in the multipart format
          profileImage: {}

      encoding:
        addresses:
          contentType: application/xml; charset=utf-8
        profileImage:
          contentType: image/png, image/jpeg
          headers:
            X-Rate-Limit-Limit:
              description: The number of allowed requests in the current period
              schema:
                type: integer

Example: Multipart Form with Multiple Files

In accordance with RFC7578, multiple files for a single form field are uploaded using the same name (file in this example) for each file's part:

requestBody:
  content:
    multipart/form-data:
      schema:
        properties:
          # The property name `file` will be used for all files.
          file:
            type: array
            items: {}

As seen in the Encoding Object's contentType field documentation, the empty schema for items indicates a media type of application/octet-stream.

Example: Ordered, Unnamed Multipart

A multipart/mixed payload consisting of a JSON metadata document followed by an image which the metadata describes:

multipart/mixed:
  schema:
    type: array
    prefixItems:
    - # default content type for objects
      # is `application/json`
      type: object
      properties:
        author:
          type: string
        created:
          type: string
          format: datetime
        copyright:
          type: string
        license:
          type: string
    - # default content type for a schema without `type`
      # is `application/octet-stream`, which we need
      # to override.
      {}
  prefixEncoding:
  - # Encoding Object defaults are correct for JSON
    {}
  - contentType: image/*

Example: Ordered Multipart With Required Header

As described in [[?RFC2557]], a set of resources making up a web page can be sent in a multipart/related payload, preserving links from the text/html document to subsidiary resources such as scripts, style sheets, and images by defining a Content-Location header for each page. The first part is used as the root resource (unless using Content-ID, which RFC2557 advises against and is forbidden in this example), so we use prefixItems and prefixEncoding to define that it must be an HTML resource, and then allow any of several different types of resources in any order to follow.

The Content-Location header is defined using content: {text/plain: {...}} to avoid percent-encoding its URI value; see Appendix D for further details.

components:
  headers:
    RFC2557NoContentId:
      description: Use Content-Location instead of Content-ID
      schema: false
    RFC2557ContentLocation:
      required: true
      content:
        text/plain:
          schema:
            $comment: Use a full URI (not a relative reference)
            type: string
            format: uri
  requestBodies:
    RFC2557:
      content:
        multipart/related; type=text/html:
          schema:
            prefixItems:
            - type: string
            items:
              anyOf:
              - type: string
              - $comment: To allow binary, this must always pass
          prefixEncoding:
          - contentType: text/html
            headers:
              Content-ID:
                $ref: '#/components/headers/RFC2557NoContentId'
              Content-Location:
                $ref: '#/components/headers/RFC2557ContentLocation'
          itemEncoding:
            contentType: text/css,text/javascript,image/*
            headers:
              Content-ID:
                $ref: '#/components/headers/RFC2557NoContentId'
              Content-Location:
                $ref: '#/components/headers/RFC2557ContentLocation'

Example: Streaming Multipart

This example assumes a device that takes large sets of pictures and streams them to the caller. Unlike the previous example, we use itemSchema here because the expectation is that each image is processed as it arrives (or in small batches), since we know that buffering the entire stream will take too much memory.

multipart/mixed:
  itemSchema:
    $comment: A single data image from the device
  itemEncoding:
    contentType: image/jpg

Example: Streaming Byte Ranges

For multipart/byteranges [[RFC9110]] Section 14.6, a Content-Range header is required:

See Appendix D for an explanation of why content: {text/plain: {...}} is used to describe the header value.

multipart/byteranges:
  itemSchema:
    $comment: A single range of bytes from a video
  itemEncoding:
    contentType: video/mp4
    headers:
      Content-Range:
        required: true
        content:
          text/plain:
            schema:
              # The `pattern` regular expression that would
              # be included in practice is omitted for simplicity
              type: string

Example: Nested multipart/mixed

This defines a two-part multipart/mixed where the first part is a JSON array and the second part is a nested multipart/mixed document. The nested parts are XML, plain text, and a PNG image.

multipart/mixed:
  schema:
    type: array
    prefixItems:
    - type: array
    - type: array
      prefixItems:
      - type: object
      - type: string
      - {}
  prefixEncoding:
    - {} # Accept the default application/json
    - contentType: multipart/mixed
      prefixEncoding:
      - contentType: application/xml
      - {} # Accept the default text/plain
      - contentType: image/png

Responses ObjectExample

A container for the expected responses of an operation. The container maps a HTTP response code to the expected response.

The documentation is not necessarily expected to cover all possible HTTP response codes because they may not be known in advance. However, documentation is expected to cover a successful operation response and any known errors.

The default MAY be used as a default Response Object for all HTTP codes that are not covered individually by the Responses Object.

The Responses Object MUST contain at least one response code, and if only one response code is provided it SHOULD be the response for a successful operation call.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
default	Response Object | Reference Object	The documentation of responses other than the ones declared for specific HTTP response codes. Use this field to cover undeclared responses.

Patterned FieldsExample

Field Pattern	Type	Description
HTTP Status Code	Response Object | Reference Object	Any HTTP status code can be used as the property name, but only one property per code, to describe the expected response for that HTTP status code. This field MUST be enclosed in quotation marks (for example, "200") for compatibility between JSON and YAML. To define a range of response codes, this field MAY contain the uppercase wildcard character X. For example, 2XX represents all response codes between 200 and 299. Only the following range definitions are allowed: 1XX, 2XX, 3XX, 4XX, and 5XX. If a response is defined using an explicit code, the explicit code definition takes precedence over the range definition for that code.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

HTTP Status CodesExample

The HTTP Status Codes are used to indicate the status of the executed operation. Status codes SHOULD be selected from the available status codes registered in the IANA Status Code Registry.

Responses Object ExampleExample

A 200 response for a successful operation and a default response for others (implying an error):

'200':
  description: a pet to be returned
  content:
    application/json:
      schema:
        $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
default:
  description: Unexpected error
  content:
    application/json:
      schema:
        $ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorModel'

Response ObjectExample

Describes a single response from an API operation, including design-time, static links to operations based on the response.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
summary	string	A short summary of the meaning of the response.
description	string	A description of the response. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
headers	Map[string, Header Object | Reference Object]	Maps a header name to its definition. RFC9110 states header names are case-insensitive. If a response header is defined with the name "Content-Type", it SHALL be ignored.
content	Map[string, Media Type Object | Reference Object]	A map containing descriptions of potential response payloads. The key is a media type or media type range and the value describes it. For responses that match multiple keys, only the most specific key is applicable. e.g. "text/plain" overrides "text/*"
links	Map[string, Link Object | Reference Object]	A map of operations links that can be followed from the response. The key of the map is a short name for the link, following the naming constraints of the names for Component Objects.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Response Object ExamplesExample

Response of an array of a complex type:

description: A complex object array response
content:
  application/json:
    schema:
      type: array
      items:
        $ref: '#/components/schemas/VeryComplexType'

Response with a string type:

description: A simple string response
content:
  text/plain:
    schema:
      type: string

Plain text response with headers:

description: A simple string response
content:
  text/plain:
    schema:
      type: string
    example: 'whoa!'
headers:
  X-Rate-Limit-Limit:
    description: The number of allowed requests in the current period
    schema:
      type: integer
  X-Rate-Limit-Remaining:
    description: The number of remaining requests in the current period
    schema:
      type: integer
  X-Rate-Limit-Reset:
    description: The number of seconds left in the current period
    schema:
      type: integer

Response with no return value:

description: object created

Callback ObjectExample

A map of possible out-of band callbacks related to the parent operation. Each value in the map is a Path Item Object that describes a set of requests that may be initiated by the API provider and the expected responses. The key value used to identify the Path Item Object is an expression, evaluated at runtime, that identifies a URL to use for the callback operation.

To describe incoming requests from the API provider independent from another API call, use the webhooks field.

Patterned FieldsExample

Field Pattern	Type	Description
{expression}	Path Item Object	A Path Item Object used to define a callback request and expected responses. A complete example is available.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Key ExpressionExample

The key that identifies the Path Item Object is a runtime expression that can be evaluated in the context of a runtime HTTP request/response to identify the URL to be used for the callback request. A simple example might be $request.body#/url. However, using a runtime expression the complete HTTP message can be accessed. This includes accessing any part of a body that a JSON Pointer RFC6901 can reference.

For example, given the following HTTP request:

POST /subscribe/myevent?queryUrl=https://clientdomain.com/stillrunning HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 188

{
  "failedUrl": "https://clientdomain.com/failed",
  "successUrls": [
    "https://clientdomain.com/fast",
    "https://clientdomain.com/medium",
    "https://clientdomain.com/slow"
  ]
}

resulting in:

201 Created
Location: https://example.org/subscription/1

The following examples show how the various expressions evaluate, assuming the callback operation has a path parameter named eventType and a query parameter named queryUrl.

Expression	Value
$url	https://example.org/subscribe/myevent?queryUrl=https://clientdomain.com/stillrunning
$method	POST
$request.path.eventType	myevent
$request.query.queryUrl	https://clientdomain.com/stillrunning
$request.header.content-type	application/json
$request.body#/failedUrl	https://clientdomain.com/failed
$request.body#/successUrls/1	https://clientdomain.com/medium
$response.header.Location	https://example.org/subscription/1

Callback Object ExamplesExample

The following example uses the user provided queryUrl query string parameter to define the callback URL. This is similar to a webhook, but differs in that the callback only occurs because of the initial request that sent the queryUrl.

myCallback:
  '{$request.query.queryUrl}':
    post:
      requestBody:
        description: Callback payload
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/SomePayload'
      responses:
        '200':
          description: callback successfully processed

The following example shows a callback where the server is hard-coded, but the query string parameters are populated from the id and email property in the request body.

transactionCallback:
  'http://notificationServer.com?transactionId={$request.body#/id}&email={$request.body#/email}':
    post:
      requestBody:
        description: Callback payload
        content:
          application/json:
            schema:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/SomePayload'
      responses:
        '200':
          description: callback successfully processed

Example ObjectExample

An object grouping an internal or external example value with basic summary and description metadata. The examples can show either data suitable for schema validation, or serialized data as required by the containing Media Type Object, Parameter Object, or Header Object. This object is typically used in fields named examples (plural), and is a referenceable alternative to older example (singular) fields that do not support referencing or metadata. The various fields and types of examples are explained in more detail under Working With Examples.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
summary	string	Short description for the example.
description	string	Long description for the example. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
dataValue	Any	An example of the data structure that MUST be valid according to the relevant Schema Object. If this field is present, value MUST be absent.
serializedValue	string	An example of the serialized form of the value, including encoding and escaping as described under Validating Examples. If dataValue is present, then this field SHOULD contain the serialization of the given data. Otherwise, it SHOULD be the valid serialization of a data value that itself MUST be valid as described for dataValue. This field SHOULD NOT be used if the serialization format is JSON, as the data form is easier to work with. If this field is present, value, and externalValue MUST be absent.
externalValue	string	A URI that identifies the serialized example in a separate document, allowing for values not easily or readably expressed as a Unicode string. If dataValue is present, then this field SHOULD identify a serialization of the given data. Otherwise, the value SHOULD be the valid serialization of a data value that itself MUST be valid as described for dataValue. If this field is present, serializedValue and value MUST be absent. See also the rules for resolving Relative References.
value	Any	Embedded literal example. The value field and externalValue field are mutually exclusive. To represent examples of media types that cannot naturally be represented in JSON or YAML, use a string value to contain the example, escaping where necessary. Deprecated for non-JSON serialization targets: Use dataValue and/or serializedValue, which both have unambiguous syntax and semantics, instead.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

In all cases, the example value SHOULD be compatible with the schema of its associated value. Tooling implementations MAY choose to validate compatibility automatically, and reject the example value(s) if incompatible. See Validating Examples for the exact meaning of "compatible" for each field in this Object.

Working with ExamplesExample

Example Objects can be used in Parameter Objects, Header Objects, and Media Type Objects. In all three Objects, this is done through the examples (plural) field. However, there are several other ways to provide examples: The example (singular) field that is mutually exclusive with examples in all three Objects, and two keywords (the deprecated singular example and the current plural examples, which takes an array of examples) in the Schema Object that appears in the schema field of all three Objects. We will refer to the singular example field in the Parameter, Header, or Media Type Object, which has the same behavior as a single Example Object with only the value field, as the "shorthand example" field. Each of these fields has slightly different considerations.

JSON-Compatible and value-Safe Examples

The value and the shorthand example field are intended to have the same semantics as serializedValue (or externalValue), while allowing a more convenient syntax when there is no difference between a JSON (or JSON-compatible YAML) representation and the final serialized form. When using this syntax for application/json or any +json media type, these fields effectively behave like dataValue, as the serialization is trivial, and they are safe to use.

For data that consists of a single string, and a serialization target such as text/plain where the string is guaranteed to be serialized without any further escaping, these fields are also safe to use.

For other serialization targets, the ambiguity of the phrase "naturally be represented in JSON or YAML," as well as past errors in the parameter style examples table, have resulted in inconsistencies in the support and usage of these fields. In practice, this has resulted in the value and shorthand example fields having implementation-defined behavior for non-JSON targets; OAD authors SHOULD use other fields to ensure interoperability.

Choosing Which Field(s) to Use

Keeping in mind the caveats from the previous section, and that the shorthand example can be used in place of value if there is only one Example Object involved, use the following guidelines to determine which field to use.

To show an example as it would be validated by a Schema Object:

• Use the Schema Object's examples array (from JSON Schema draft 2020-12) if the intent is to keep the example with the validating schema.
  • Use the Schema Object's example (singular) only if compatibility with OAS v3.0 or earlier is required.
• Use the Example Object's dataValue field if the intent is to associate the example with an example of its serialization, or if it is desirable to maintain it separately from the schema.
  • Use the Example Object's value field only if compatibility with OAS v3.1 or earlier is needed and the value can be "naturally represented in JSON or YAML" without any changes (such as percent-encoding) between the validation-ready value and the serialized representation.

To show an example as it would be serialized in order to construct an HTTP/1.1 message:

• Use the Example Object's serializedValue if the serialization can be represented as a valid Unicode string, and there is no need to demonstrate the exact character encoding to be used.
  • Use the string form of value only if compatibility with OAS v3.1 or earlier is needed.
• Use the Example Object's externalValue for all other values, or if it is desirable to maintain the example separately from the OpenAPI document.

The serializedValue and externalValue fields both MUST show the serialized form of the data. For Media Type Objects, this is a document of the appropriate media type, with any Encoding Object effects applied. For Parameter and Header Objects using schema and style rather than a Media Type Object, see Style Examples for what constitutes a serialized value.

Criteria for serializedExample

A serialization can be represented as a valid Unicode string in serializedValue if any of the following are true of the serialization:

• It is for a media type that supports a charset parameter that indicates any Unicode encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.), or any valid subset of such an encoding, such as US-ASCII.
• It is for a format (such as URIs or HTTP fields) or character-based media type that requires or defaults to a Unicode encoding, or any valid subset of such an encoding, such as US-ASCII, and this is not overridden by charset.
• It is for a compound format where all parts meet at least one of the above criteria, e.g. a multipart/mixed media type with parts that are application/json (a media type that defaults to UTF-8) and application/xml; charset=utf-8 (a media type with an explicit charset parameter).

In all of these cases, the conversion from the character set of the OAD (presumed to be UTF-8 as the only interoperable character set for JSON, and therefore also for JSON-compatible YAML as noted in [[RFC9512]] Section 3.4) first to Unicode code points and then to the actual serialization character set is well-defined.

For externalValue, if the character set is neither explicitly stated nor determined by the format or media type specification, implementations SHOULD assume UTF-8.

Validating Examples

Tooling implementations MAY choose to validate compatibility automatically, and reject the example value(s) if incompatible. For examples that are in schema-ready data form, this is straightforward.

With serialized examples, some formats allow multiple possible valid representations of the same data, including in scenarios noted in Appendix B. In some cases, parsing the serialized example and validating the resulting data can eliminate the ambiguity, but in a few cases parsing is also ambiguous. Therefore, OAD authors are cautioned that validation of certain serialized examples is by necessity a best-effort feature.

Example Object ExamplesExample

JSON Examples

When writing in YAML, JSON syntax can be used for dataValue (as shown in the noRating example) but is not required. While this example shows the behavior of both dataValue and serializedValue for JSON (in the 'withRating` example), in most cases only the data form is needed.

content:
  application/json:
    schema:
      type: object
      required:
      - author
      - title
      properties:
        author:
          type: string
        title:
          type: string
        rating:
          type: number
          minimum: 1
          maximum: 5
          multipleOf: 0.5
    examples:
      noRating:
        summary: A not-yet-rated work
        dataValue:
          author: A. Writer
          title: The Newest Book
      withRating:
        summary: A work with an average rating of 4.5 stars
        dataValue:
          author: A. Writer
          title: An Older Book
          rating: 4.5
        serializedValue: |
          {
            "author": "A. Writer",
            "title": "An Older Book",
            "rating": 4.5
          }

Binary Examples

Fully binary data is shown using externalValue:

content:
  image/png:
    schema: {}
    examples:
      Red:
        externalValue: ./examples/2-by-2-red-pixels.png

Boolean Query Parameter Examples

Since there is no standard for serializing boolean values (as discussed in Appendix B), this example uses dataValue and serializedValue to show how booleans are serialized for this particular parameter:

name: flag
in: query
required: true
schema:
  type: boolean
examples:
  "true":
    dataValue: true
    serializedValue: flag=true
  "false":
    dataValue: false
    serializedValue: flag=false

Link ObjectExample

The Link Object represents a possible design-time link for a response. The presence of a link does not guarantee the caller's ability to successfully invoke it, rather it provides a known relationship and traversal mechanism between responses and other operations.

Unlike dynamic links (i.e. links provided in the response payload), the OAS linking mechanism does not require link information in the runtime response.

For computing links and providing instructions to execute them, a runtime expression is used for accessing values in an operation and using them as parameters while invoking the linked operation.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
operationRef	string	A URI reference to an OAS operation. This field is mutually exclusive of the operationId field, and MUST point to an Operation Object. Relative operationRef values MAY be used to locate an existing Operation Object in the OpenAPI Description.
operationId	string	The name of an existing, resolvable OAS operation, as defined with a unique operationId. This field is mutually exclusive of the operationRef field.
parameters	Map[string, Any | {expression}]	A map representing parameters to pass to an operation as specified with operationId or identified via operationRef. The key is the parameter name to be used (optionally qualified with the parameter location, e.g. path.id for an id parameter in the path), whereas the value can be a constant or an expression to be evaluated and passed to the linked operation.
requestBody	Any | {expression}	A literal value or {expression} to use as a request body when calling the target operation.
description	string	A description of the link. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
server	Server Object	A server object to be used by the target operation.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

A linked operation MUST be identified using either an operationRef or operationId. The identified or referenced operation MUST be unique, and in the case of an operationId, it MUST be resolved within the scope of the OpenAPI Description (OAD). Because of the potential for name clashes, the operationRef syntax is preferred for multi-document OADs. However, because use of an operation depends on its URL path template in the Paths Object, operations from any Path Item Object that is referenced multiple times within the OAD cannot be resolved unambiguously. In such ambiguous cases, the resulting behavior is implementation-defined and MAY result in an error.

Note that it is not possible to provide a constant value to parameters that matches the syntax of a runtime expression. It is possible to have ambiguous parameter names, e.g. name: "id", in: "path" and name: "path.id", in: "query"; this is NOT RECOMMENDED and the behavior is implementation-defined, however implementations SHOULD prefer the qualified interpretation (path.id as a path parameter), as the names can always be qualified to disambiguate them (e.g. using query.path.id for the query parameter).

ExamplesExample

Computing a link from a request operation where the $request.path.id is used to pass a request parameter to the linked operation.

paths:
  /users/{id}:
    parameters:
      - name: id
        in: path
        required: true
        description: the user identifier, as userId
        schema:
          type: string
    get:
      responses:
        '200':
          description: the user being returned
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                type: object
                properties:
                  uuid: # the unique user id
                    type: string
                    format: uuid
          links:
            address:
              # the target link operationId
              operationId: getUserAddress
              parameters:
                # get the `id` field from the request path parameter named "id"
                userid: $request.path.id
  # the path item of the linked operation
  /users/{userid}/address:
    parameters:
      - name: userid
        in: path
        required: true
        description: the user identifier, as userId
        schema:
          type: string
    # linked operation
    get:
      operationId: getUserAddress
      responses:
        '200':
          description: the user's address

When a runtime expression fails to evaluate, no parameter value is passed to the target operation.

Values from the response body can be used to drive a linked operation.

links:
  address:
    operationId: getUserAddressByUUID
    parameters:
      # get the `uuid` field from the `uuid` field in the response body
      userUuid: $response.body#/uuid

Clients follow all links at their discretion. Neither permissions nor the capability to make a successful call to that link is guaranteed solely by the existence of a relationship.

operationRef Examples

As the operationId is an optional field in an Operation Object, references MAY instead be made through a URI reference with operationRef. Note that both of these examples reference operations that can be identified via the Paths Object to ensure that the operation's path template is unambiguous.

A relative URI reference operationRef:

links:
  UserRepositories:
    # returns array of '#/components/schemas/repository'
    operationRef: '#/paths/~12.0~1repositories~1%7Busername%7D/get'
    parameters:
      username: $response.body#/username

A non-relative URI operationRef:

links:
  UserRepositories:
    # returns array of '#/components/schemas/repository'
    operationRef: https://na2.gigantic-server.com/#/paths/~12.0~1repositories~1%7Busername%7D/get
    parameters:
      username: $response.body#/username

Note that in the use of operationRef the escaped forward-slash (~1) is necessary when using JSON Pointer in URI fragments, and it is necessary to URL-encode { and } as %7B and %7D, respectively. The unescaped, percent-decoded path template in the above examples would be /2.0/repositories/{username}.

Runtime ExpressionsExample

Runtime expressions allow defining values based on information that will only be available within the HTTP message in an actual API call. This mechanism is used by Link Objects and Callback Objects.

The runtime expression is defined by the following ABNF syntax

    expression = "$url" / "$method" / "$statusCode" / "$request." source / "$response." source
    source     = header-reference / query-reference / path-reference / body-reference
    header-reference = "header." token
    query-reference  = "query." name
    path-reference   = "path." name
    body-reference   = "body" ["#" json-pointer ]
    json-pointer    = *( "/" reference-token )
    reference-token = *( unescaped / escaped )
    unescaped       = %x00-2E / %x30-7D / %x7F-10FFFF
                    ; %x2F ('/') and %x7E ('~') are excluded from 'unescaped'
    escaped         = "~" ( "0" / "1" )
                    ; representing '~' and '/', respectively
    name = *char
    token = 1*tchar
    tchar = "!" / "#" / "$" / "%" / "&" / "'" / "*" / "+" / "-" / "."
          / "^" / "_" / "`" / "|" / "~" / DIGIT / ALPHA

Here, json-pointer is taken from RFC6901, char from RFC8259 and token from RFC9110.

The name identifier is case-sensitive, whereas token is not.

The table below provides examples of runtime expressions and examples of their use in a value:

Example Expressions

Source Location	example expression	notes
HTTP Method	$method	The allowable values for the $method will be those for the HTTP operation.
Requested media type	$request.header.accept
Request parameter	$request.path.id	Request parameters MUST be declared in the parameters section of the parent operation or they cannot be evaluated. This includes request headers.
Request body property	$request.body#/user/uuid	In operations which accept payloads, references may be made to portions of the requestBody or the entire body.
Request URL	$url
Response value	$response.body#/status	In operations which return payloads, references may be made to portions of the response body or the entire body.
Response header	$response.header.Server	Single header values only are available

Runtime expressions preserve the type of the referenced value. Expressions can be embedded into string values by surrounding the expression with {} curly braces.

Header ObjectExample

Describes a single header for HTTP responses and for individual parts in multipart representations; see the relevant Response Object and Encoding Object documentation for restrictions on which headers can be described.

The Header Object follows the structure of the Parameter Object, including determining its serialization strategy based on whether schema or content is present, with the following changes:

1. name MUST NOT be specified, it is given in the corresponding headers map.
2. in MUST NOT be specified, it is implicitly in header.
3. All traits that are affected by the location MUST be applicable to a location of header (for example, style). This means that allowEmptyValue MUST NOT be used, and style, if used, MUST be limited to "simple".

Fixed FieldsExample

Common Fixed Fields

These fields MAY be used with either content or schema.

The example and examples fields are mutually exclusive; see Working with Examples for guidance on validation requirements.

Field Name	Type	Description
description	string	A brief description of the header. This could contain examples of use. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
required	boolean	Determines whether this header is mandatory. The default value is false.
deprecated	boolean	Specifies that the header is deprecated and SHOULD be transitioned out of usage. Default value is false.
example	Any	Example of the header's potential value; see Working With Examples.
examples	Map[ string, Example Object | Reference Object]	Examples of the header's potential value; see Working With Examples.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Fixed Fields for use with schema

For simpler scenarios, a schema and style can describe the structure and syntax of the header.

When serializing headers with schema, URI percent-encoding MUST NOT be applied; if using an RFC6570 implementation that automatically applies it, it MUST be removed before use. Implementations MUST pass header values through unchanged rather than attempting to automatically quote header values, as the quoting rules vary too widely among different headers; see Appendix D for guidance on quoting and escaping.

Field Name	Type	Description
style	string	Describes how the header value will be serialized. The default (and only legal value for headers) is "simple".
explode	boolean	When this is true, header values of type array or object generate a single header whose value is a comma-separated list of the array items or key-value pairs of the map, see Style Examples. For other data types this field has no effect. The default value is false.
schema	Schema Object	The schema defining the type used for the header.

See also Appendix C: Using RFC6570-Based Serialization for additional guidance.

Fixed Fields for use with content

For more complex scenarios, the content field can define the media type and schema of the header, as well as give examples of its use.

Field Name	Type	Description
content	Map[string, Media Type Object | Reference Object]	A map containing the representations for the header. The key is the media type and the value describes it. The map MUST only contain one entry.

Modeling Link HeadersExample

[[!RFC9264]] defines the application/linkset and application/linkset+json media types. The former is exactly the format of HTTP link header values except allowing additional whitespace for readability, while the latter is an equivalent JSON representation of such headers.

To use either of these media types, the schema in the Media Type Object MUST describe the links as they would be structured in the application/linkset+json format. If the Media Type Object's parent key is application/linkset+json, then the serialization is trivial, however this format cannot be used in the HTTP Link header. If the Media Type Object's parent key is application/linkset, then the serialization MUST be the equivalent representation of the schema-modeled links in the application/linkset format. If the application/linkset Media Type Object is used in the content field of a Header Object (or a Parameter Object with in: "header"), the serialization MUST be made compatible with the HTTP field syntax as described by [[!RFC9264]] Section 4.1.

The following example shows how the same data model can be used for a collection pagination linkset either in JSON format as message content, or in the HTTP Link header:

components:
  schemas:
    SimpleLinkContext:
      type: array
      items:
        type: object
        required:
        - href
        properties:
          href:
            type: string
            format: uri-reference
    CollectionLinks:
      type: object
      required:
      - linkset
      properties:
        linkset:
          type: array
          items:
            type: object
            required: [first, prev, next, last]
            properties:
              anchor:
                type: string
                format: uri
            additionalProperties:
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/SimpleLinkContext'
  responses:
    CollectionWithLinks:
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            type: array
      headers:
        Link:
          required: true
          content:
            application/linkset:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/CollectionLinks'
    StandaloneJsonLinkset:
      content:
        application/linkset+json:
          schema:
            $ref: '#/components/mediaTypes/CollectionLinks'

Representing the Set-Cookie HeaderExample

The Set-Cookie header is noted in [[!RFC9110]] Section 5.3 as an exception to the normal rules of headers with multiple values.

For most headers using the general syntax defined in RFC9110, the multiple-line and comma-separated single-line forms are interchangeable, meaning that this:

Accept-Encoding: compress;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip;q=1.0

is interchangeable with the one-line form that works well with the OAS's style: "simple" option:

Accept-Encoding: compress;q=0.5,gzip;q=1.0

The OAS models such multi-value headers using the one-line form as it matches the behavior of style: "simple", and works well when using content as the values are completely separate from the header name, but it does not matter which form is used in an actual HTTP message.

As also noted in the RFC, Set-Cookie is an exception as it allows unquoted, non-escaped commas in its values, and can only use the one-value-per-line form. For HTTP messages, this is purely a serialization concern, and no more of a problem than a message that uses the multi-line form of any other header.

However, because examples and values modeled with content do not incorporate the header name, for these fields Set-Cookie MUST be handled by placing each value on a separate line, without the header name or the : delimiter.

Note also that any URI percent-encoding, base64 encoding, or other escaping MUST be performed prior to supplying the data to OAS tooling; see Appendix D for details.

The following example shows two different ways to describe Set-Cookie headers that require cookies named "lang" and "foo", as well as a "urlSafeData" cookie that is expected to be percent-encoded. The first uses content in order to show exactly how such examples are formatted, but also notes the limitations of schema constraints with multi-line text. The second shows the use of style: "simple", which produces the same serialized example text (with each line corresponding to one Set-Cookie: line in the HTTP response), but allows schema constraints on each cookie; note that the percent-encoding is already applied in the dataValue field of the example:

components:
  headers:
    SetCookieWithContent:
      content:
        text/plain:
          schema:
            # Due to lack of support for multiline regular expressions
            # in the `pattern` keyword, not much validation can be done.
            type: string
      examples:
        WithExpires:
          # This demonstrates that the text is required to be provided
          # in the final format, and is not changed by serialization.
          # In practice, it is not necessary to show both value fields.
          # Note that only the comma (%2C) would need to be percent-encoded
          # if percent-encoding were only being done to make the value
          # a valid cookie, as space (%20) and the exclamation point (%21)
          # are allowed in cookies, but not in URLs.  See the cookie
          # input parameter examples for an example of encoding only
          # what is needed for the cookie syntax.
          dataValue: |
            lang=en-US; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            foo=bar; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            urlSafeData: Hello%2C%20world%21
          serializedValue: |
            lang=en-US; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            foo=bar; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            urlSafeData: Hello%2C%20world%21
    SetCookieWithSchemaAndStyle:
      schema:
        type: object
        required:
        - lang
        - foo
        - urlSafeData
        properties:
          urlSafeData:
            type: string
            pattern: ^[-_.%a-zA-Z0-9]+(;|$)
        additionalProperties:
          $comment: Require an Expires parameter
          pattern: "; *Expires="
      style: simple
      explode: true
      examples:
        SetCookies:
          dataValue: {
            "lang": "en-US; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT"
            "foo": "bar; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT"
            "urlSafeData": "Hello%2C%20world%21"
          }
          serializedValue: |
            lang=en-US; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            foo=bar; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
            urlSafeData: Hello%2C%20world%21

In an HTTP message, the serialized example would look like:

Set-Cookie: lang=en-US; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GM
Set-Cookie: foo=bar; Expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT
Set-Cookie: urlSafeData=Hello%2C%20world%21

Header Object ExampleExample

A simple header of type integer:

X-Rate-Limit-Limit:
  description: The number of allowed requests in the current period
  schema:
    type: integer

Requiring that a strong ETag header (with a value starting with " rather than W/) is present.

ETag:
  required: true
  schema:
    type: string
    # Note that quotation marks are part of the
    # ETag value, unlike many other headers that
    # use a quoted string purely for managing
    # reserved characters.
    pattern: ^"
  example: '"xyzzy"'

Tag ObjectExample

Adds metadata to a single tag that is used by the Operation Object. It is not mandatory to have a Tag Object per tag defined in the Operation Object instances.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
name	string	REQUIRED. The name of the tag. Use this value in the tags array of an Operation.
summary	string	A short summary of the tag, used for display purposes.
description	string	A description for the tag. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
externalDocs	External Documentation Object	Additional external documentation for this tag.
parent	string	The name of a tag that this tag is nested under. The named tag MUST exist in the API description, and circular references between parent and child tags MUST NOT be used.
kind	string	A machine-readable string to categorize what sort of tag it is. Any string value can be used; common uses are nav for Navigation, badge for visible badges, audience for APIs used by different groups. A registry of the most commonly used values is available.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Tag Object ExampleExample

tags:
  - name: account-updates
    summary: Account Updates
    description: Account update operations
    kind: nav

  - name: partner
    summary: Partner
    description: Operations available to the partners network
    parent: external
    kind: audience

  - name: external
    summary: External
    description: Operations available to external consumers
    kind: audience

Reference ObjectExample

A simple object to allow referencing other components in the OpenAPI Description, internally and externally.

The $ref string value contains a URI RFC3986, which identifies the value being referenced.

See the rules for resolving Relative References.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
$ref	string	REQUIRED. The reference identifier. This MUST be in the form of a URI.
summary	string	A short summary which by default SHOULD override that of the referenced component. If the referenced object-type does not allow a summary field, then this field has no effect.
description	string	A description which by default SHOULD override that of the referenced component. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation. If the referenced object-type does not allow a description field, then this field has no effect.

This object cannot be extended with additional properties, and any properties added SHALL be ignored.

Note that this restriction on additional properties is a difference between Reference Objects and Schema Objects that contain a $ref keyword.

Reference Object ExampleExample

$ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'

Relative Schema Document ExampleExample

$ref: Pet.yaml

Relative Documents with Embedded Schema ExampleExample

$ref: definitions.yaml#/Pet

Schema ObjectExample

The Schema Object allows the definition of input and output data types. These types can be objects, but also primitives and arrays. This object is a superset of the JSON Schema Specification Draft 2020-12. The empty schema (which allows any instance to validate) MAY be represented by the boolean value true and a schema which allows no instance to validate MAY be represented by the boolean value false.

For more information about the keywords, see JSON Schema Core and JSON Schema Validation.

Unless stated otherwise, the keyword definitions follow those of JSON Schema and do not add any additional semantics; this includes keywords such as $schema, $id, $ref, and $dynamicRef being URIs rather than URLs. Where JSON Schema indicates that behavior is defined by the application (e.g. for annotations), OAS also defers the definition of semantics to the application consuming the OpenAPI document.

JSON Schema KeywordsExample

The OpenAPI Schema Object dialect is defined as requiring the OAS base vocabulary, in addition to the vocabularies as specified in the JSON Schema Specification Draft 2020-12 general purpose meta-schema.

The OpenAPI Schema Object dialect for this version of the specification is identified by the URI https://spec.openapis.org/oas/3.1/dialect/base (the "OAS dialect schema id").

The following keywords are taken from the JSON Schema specification but their definitions have been extended by the OAS:

• description - CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
• format - See Data Type Formats for further details. While relying on JSON Schema's defined formats, the OAS offers a few additional predefined formats.

In addition to the JSON Schema keywords comprising the OAS dialect, the Schema Object supports keywords from any other vocabularies, or entirely arbitrary properties.

JSON Schema implementations MAY choose to treat keywords defined by the OpenAPI Specification's base vocabulary as unknown keywords, due to its inclusion in the OAS dialect with a $vocabulary value of false. The OAS base vocabulary is comprised of the following keywords:

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
discriminator	Discriminator Object	The discriminator provides a "hint" for which of a set of schemas a payload is expected to satisfy. See Composition and Inheritance for more details.
xml	XML Object	Adds additional metadata to describe the XML representation of this schema.
externalDocs	External Documentation Object	Additional external documentation for this schema.
example	Any	A free-form field to include an example of an instance for this schema. To represent examples that cannot be naturally represented in JSON or YAML, a string value can be used to contain the example with escaping where necessary. Deprecated: The example field has been deprecated in favor of the JSON Schema examples keyword. Use of example is discouraged, and later versions of this specification may remove it.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions, though as noted, additional properties MAY omit the x- prefix within this object.

Data TypesExample

Data types in the OAS are based on the types defined by the JSON Schema Validation Specification Draft 2020-12: "null", "boolean", "object", "array", "number", "string", or "integer". Models are defined using the Schema Object, which is a superset of the JSON Schema Specification Draft 2020-12.

JSON Schema keywords and format values operate on JSON "instances" which may be one of the six JSON data types, "null", "boolean", "object", "array", "number", or "string", with certain keywords and formats only applying to a specific type. For example, the pattern keyword and the date-time format only apply to strings, and treat any instance of the other five types as automatically valid. This means JSON Schema keywords and formats do NOT implicitly require the expected type. Use the type keyword to explicitly constrain the type.

Note that the type keyword allows "integer" as a value for convenience, but keyword and format applicability does not recognize integers as being of a distinct JSON type from other numbers because [[RFC8259|JSON]] itself does not make that distinction. Since there is no distinct JSON integer type, JSON Schema defines integers mathematically. This means that both 1 and 1.0 are equivalent, and are both considered to be integers.

Data Type Format

As defined by the JSON Schema Validation specification, data types can have an optional modifier keyword: format. As described in that specification, format is treated as a non-validating annotation by default; the ability to validate format varies across implementations.

The OpenAPI Initiative also hosts a Format Registry for formats defined by OAS users and other specifications. Support for any registered format is strictly OPTIONAL, and support for one registered format does not imply support for any others.

Types that are not accompanied by a format keyword follow the type definition in the JSON Schema. Tools that do not recognize a specific format MAY default back to the type alone, as if the format is not specified. For the purpose of JSON Schema validation, each format should specify the set of JSON data types for which it applies. In this registry, these types are shown in the "JSON Data Type" column.

The formats defined by the OAS are:

format	JSON Data Type	Comments
int32	number	signed 32 bits
int64	number	signed 64 bits (a.k.a long)
float	number
double	number
password	string	A hint to obscure the value.

As noted under Data Type, both type: number and type: integer are considered to be numbers in the data model.

Parsing and SerializingExample

API data has several forms:

1. The serialized form, which is either a document of a particular media type, an HTTP header value, or part of a URI.
2. The data form, intended for use with a Schema Object.
3. The application form, which incorporates any additional information conveyed by JSON Schema keywords such as format and contentType, and possibly additional information such as class hierarchies that are beyond the scope of this specification, although they MAY be based on specification elements such as the Discriminator Object or guidance regarding Data Modeling Techniques.

JSON Data

JSON-serialized data is nearly equivalent to the data form because the JSON Schema data model is nearly equivalent to the JSON representation. The serialized UTF-8 JSON string {"when": "1985-04-12T23:20:50.52"} represents an object with one data field, named when, with a string value, 1985-04-12T23:20:50.52.

The exact application form is beyond the scope of this specification, as can be shown with the following schema for our JSON instance:

type: object
properties:
  when:
    type: string
    format: date-time

Some applications might leave the string as a string regardless of programming language, while others might notice the format and use it as a datetime.datetime instance in Python, or a java.time.ZonedDateTime in Java. This specification only requires that the data is valid according to the schema, and that annotations such as format are available in accordance with the JSON Schema specification.

Non-JSON Data

Non-JSON serializations can be substantially different from their corresponding data form, and might require several steps to parse.

To continue our "when" example, if we serialized the object as application/x-www-form-urlencoded, it would appear as the ASCII string when=1985-04-12T23%3A20%3A50.52. This example is still straightforward to use as it is all string data, and the only differences from JSON are the URI percent-encoding and the delimiter syntax (= instead of JSON punctuation and quoting).

However, many non-JSON text-based formats can be complex, requiring examination of the appropriate schema(s) in order to correctly parse the text into a schema-ready data structure. Serializing data into such formats requires either examining the schema-validated data or performing the same schema inspections.

When inspecting schemas, given a starting point schema, implementations MUST examine that schema and all schemas that can be reached from it by following only $ref and allOf keywords. These schemas are guaranteed to apply to any instance. When searching schemas for type, if the type keyword's value is a list of types and the serialized value can be successfully parsed as more than one of the types in the list, and no other findable type keyword disambiguates the actual required type, the behavior is implementation-defined. Schema Objects that do not contain type MUST be considered to allow all types, regardless of which other keywords are present (e.g. maximum applies to numbers, but does not require the instance to be a number).

Implementations MAY inspect subschemas or possible reference targets of other keywords such as oneOf or $dynamicRef, but MUST NOT attempt to resolve ambiguities. For example, if an implementation opts to inspect anyOf, the schema:

anyOf:
- type: number
  minimum: 0
- type: number
  maximum: 100

unambiguously indicates a numeric type, but the schema:

anyOf:
- type: number
- maximum: 100

does not, because the second subschema allows all types.

Due to these limited requirements for searching schemas, serializers that have access to validated data MUST inspect the data if possible; implementations that either do not work with runtime data (such as code generators) or cannot access validated data for some reason MUST fall back to schema inspection.

Recall also that in JSON Schema, keywords that apply to a specific type (e.g. pattern applies to strings, minimum applies to numbers) do not require or imply that the data will actually be of that type.

As an example of these processes, given these OpenAPI components:

components:
  requestBodies:
    Form:
      content:
        application/x-www-form-urlencoded:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/FormData"
          encoding:
            extra:
              contentType: application/xml
  schemas:
    FormData:
      type: object
      properties:
        code:
          allOf:
          - type: [string, number]
            pattern: "1"
            minimum: 0
          - type: string
            pattern: "2"
        count:
          type: integer
        extra:
          type: object

And this request body to parse into its data form:

code=1234&count=42&extra=%3Cinfo%3Eabc%3C/info%3E

We must first search the schema for properties or other property-defining keywords, and then use each property schema as a starting point for a search for that property's type keyword, as follows (the exact order is implementation-defined):

• #/components/requestBodies/Form/content/application~1x-www-form-urlencoded/schema (initial starting point schema, only $ref)
• #/components/schemas/FormData (follow $ref, found properties)
• #/components/schemas/FormData/properties/code (starting point schema for code property)
• #/components/schemas/FormData/properties/code/allOf/0 (follow allOf, found type: [string, number])
• #/components/schemas/FormData/properties/code/allOf/1 (follow allOf, found type: string)
• #/components/schemas/FormData/properties/count (starting point schema for count property, found type: integer)
• #/components/schemas/FormData/properties/extra (starting point schema for extra property, found type: object)

Note that for code we first found an ambiguous type, but then found another type keyword that ensures only one of the two possibilities is valid.

From this inspection, we determine that code is a string that happens to look like a number, while count needs to be parsed into a number prior to schema validation. Furthermore, the extra string is in fact an XML serialization of an object containing an info property. This means that the data form of this serialization is equivalent to the following JSON object:

{
  "code": "1234",
  "count": 42
  "extra": {
    "info": "abc"
  }
}

Serializing this object also requires correlating properties with Encoding Objects, and may require inspection to determine a default value of the contentType field. If validated data is not available, the schema inspection process is identical to that shown for parsing.

In this example, both code and count are of primitive type and do not appear in the encoding field, and are therefore serialized as plain text. However, the extra field is an object, which would by default be serialized as JSON, but the extra entry in the encoding field tells use to serialize it as XML instead.

Working with Binary Data

The OAS can describe either raw or encoded binary data.

• raw binary is used where unencoded binary data is allowed, such as when sending a binary payload as the entire HTTP message body, or as part of a multipart/* payload that allows binary parts
• encoded binary is used where binary data is embedded in a text-only format such as application/json or application/x-www-form-urlencoded (either as a message body or in the URL query string).

In the following table showing how to use Schema Object keywords for binary data, we use image/png as an example binary media type. Any binary media type, including application/octet-stream, is sufficient to indicate binary content.

Keyword	Raw	Encoded	Comments
type	omit	string	raw binary is outside of type
contentMediaType	image/png	image/png	can sometimes be omitted if redundant (see below)
contentEncoding	omit	base64 or base64url	other encodings are allowed

Note that the encoding indicated by contentEncoding, which inflates the size of data in order to represent it as 7-bit ASCII text, is unrelated to HTTP's Content-Encoding header, which indicates whether and how a message body has been compressed and is applied after all content serialization described in this section has occurred. Since HTTP allows unencoded binary message bodies, there is no standardized HTTP header for indicating base64 or similar encoding of an entire message body.

Using a contentEncoding of base64url ensures that URL encoding (as required in the query string and in message bodies of type application/x-www-form-urlencoded) does not need to further encode any part of the already-encoded binary data.

The contentMediaType keyword is redundant if the media type is already set:

• as the key for a Media Type Object
• in the contentType field of an Encoding Object

If the Schema Object will be processed by a non-OAS-aware JSON Schema implementation, it may be useful to include contentMediaType even if it is redundant. However, if contentMediaType contradicts a relevant Media Type Object or Encoding Object, then contentMediaType SHALL be ignored.

See Complete vs Streaming Content for guidance on streaming binary payloads.

Schema Evaluation and Binary Data

Few JSON Schema implementations directly support working with binary data, as doing so is not a mandatory part of that specification.

OAS Implementations that do not have access to a binary-instance-supporting JSON Schema implementation MUST examine schemas and apply them in accordance with Working with Binary Data. When the entire instance is binary, this is straightforward as few keywords are relevant.

However, multipart media types can mix binary and text-based data, leaving implementations with two options for schema evaluations:

1. Use a placeholder value, on the assumption that no assertions will apply to the binary data and no conditional schema keywords will cause the schema to treat the placeholder value differently (e.g. a part that could be either plain text or binary might behave unexpectedly if a string is used as a binary placeholder, as it would likely be treated as plain text and subject to different subschemas and keywords).
2. Inspect the schema(s) to find the appropriate keywords (properties, prefixItems, etc.) in order to break up the subschemas and apply them separately to binary and JSON-compatible data.

Migrating Binary Descriptions from OAS 3.0

The following table shows how to migrate from OAS 3.0 binary data descriptions, continuing to use image/png as the example binary media type:

OAS < 3.1	OAS >= 3.1	Comments
type: string format: binary	contentMediaType: image/png	if redundant, can be omitted, often resulting in an empty Schema Object
type: string format: byte	type: string contentMediaType: image/png contentEncoding: base64	note that base64url can be used to avoid re-encoding the base64 string to be URL-safe

Extended Validation with AnnotationsExample

JSON Schema Draft 2020-12 supports collecting annotations, including treating unrecognized keywords as annotations. OAS implementations MAY use such annotations, including extensions not recognized as part of a declared JSON Schema vocabulary, as the basis for further validation. Note that JSON Schema Draft 2020-12 does not require an x- prefix for extensions.

Non-Validating Constraint Keywords

The format keyword (when using default format-annotation vocabulary) and the contentMediaType, contentEncoding, and contentSchema keywords define constraints on the data, but are treated as annotations instead of being validated directly. Extended validation is one way that these constraints MAY be enforced.

Validating readOnly and writeOnly

The readOnly and writeOnly keywords are annotations, as JSON Schema is not aware of how the data it is validating is being used. Validation of these keywords MAY be done by checking the annotation, the read or write direction, and (if relevant) the current value of the field. JSON Schema Validation Draft 2020-12 Section 9.4 defines the expectations of these keywords, including that a resource (described as the "owning authority") MAY either ignore a readOnly field or treat it as an error.

Fields that are both required and read-only are an example of when it is beneficial to ignore a readOnly: true constraint in a PUT, particularly if the value has not been changed. This allows correctly requiring the field on a GET and still using the same representation and schema with PUT. Even when read-only fields are not required, stripping them is burdensome for clients, particularly when the JSON data is complex or deeply nested.

Note that the behavior of readOnly in particular differs from that specified by version 3.0 of this specification.

Data Modeling TechniquesExample

Composition and Inheritance (Polymorphism)

The OpenAPI Specification allows combining and extending model definitions using the allOf keyword of JSON Schema, in effect offering model composition. allOf takes an array of object definitions that are validated independently but together compose a single object.

While composition offers model extensibility, it does not imply a hierarchy between the models.

JSON Schema also provides the anyOf and oneOf keywords, which allow defining multiple schemas where at least one or exactly one of them must be valid, respectively. As is the case with allOf, the schemas are validated independently. These keywords can be used to describe polymorphism, where a single field can accept multiple types of values.

The OpenAPI specification extends the JSON Schema support for polymorphism by adding the discriminator field whose value is a Discriminator Object. When used, the Discriminator Object indicates the name of the property that hints which schema of an anyOf or oneOf is expected to validate the structure of the model. The discriminating property MAY be defined as required or optional, but when defined as an optional property the Discriminator Object MUST include a defaultMapping field that specifies which schema of the anyOf or oneOf, or which schema that references the current schema in an allOf, is expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is not present.

There are two ways to define the value of a discriminating property for an inheriting instance.

• Use the schema name.
• Override the schema name by overriding the property with a new value. If a new value exists, this takes precedence over the schema name.

Generic (Template) Data Structures

Implementations SHOULD support defining generic or template data structures using JSON Schema's dynamic referencing feature:

• $dynamicAnchor identifies a set of possible schemas (including a default placeholder schema) to which a $dynamicRef can resolve
• $dynamicRef resolves to the first matching $dynamicAnchor encountered on its path from the schema entry point to the reference, as described in the JSON Schema specification

An example is included in the Schema Object Examples section below, and further information can be found on the Learn OpenAPI site's "Dynamic References" page.

Annotated Enumerations

The Schema Object's enum keyword does not allow associating descriptions or other information with individual values.

Implementations MAY support recognizing a oneOf or anyOf where each subschema in the keyword's array consists of a const keyword and annotations such as title or description as an enumerated type with additional information. The exact behavior of this pattern beyond what is required by JSON Schema is implementation-defined.

XML Modeling

The xml field allows extra definitions when translating the JSON definition to XML. The XML Object contains additional information about the available options.

Specifying Schema DialectsExample

It is important for tooling to be able to determine which dialect or meta-schema any given resource wishes to be processed with: JSON Schema Core, JSON Schema Validation, OpenAPI Schema dialect, or some custom meta-schema.

The $schema keyword MAY be present in any Schema Object that is a schema resource root, and if present MUST be used to determine which dialect should be used when processing the schema. This allows use of Schema Objects which comply with other drafts of JSON Schema than the default Draft 2020-12 support. Tooling MUST support the OAS dialect schema id, and MAY support additional values of $schema.

To allow use of a different default $schema value for all Schema Objects contained within an OAS document, a jsonSchemaDialect value may be set within the OpenAPI Object. If this default is not set, then the OAS dialect schema id MUST be used for these Schema Objects. The value of $schema within a resource root Schema Object always overrides any default.

For standalone JSON Schema documents that do not set $schema, or for Schema Objects in OpenAPI description documents that are not complete documents, the dialect SHOULD be assumed to be the OAS dialect. However, for maximum interoperability, it is RECOMMENDED that OpenAPI description authors explicitly set the dialect through $schema in such documents.

Schema Object ExamplesExample

Primitive Example

type: string
format: email

Simple Model

type: object
required:
  - name
properties:
  name:
    type: string
  address:
    $ref: '#/components/schemas/Address'
  age:
    type: integer
    format: int32
    minimum: 0

Model with Map/Dictionary Properties

For a simple string to string mapping:

type: object
additionalProperties:
  type: string

For a string to model mapping:

type: object
additionalProperties:
  $ref: '#/components/schemas/ComplexModel'

Model with Annotated Enumeration

oneOf:
  - const: RGB
    title: Red, Green, Blue
    description: Specify colors with the red, green, and blue additive color model
  - const: CMYK
    title: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black
    description: Specify colors with the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black subtractive color model

Model with Example

type: object
properties:
  id:
    type: integer
    format: int64
  name:
    type: string
required:
  - name
examples:
  - name: Puma
    id: 1

Models with Composition

components:
  schemas:
    ErrorModel:
      type: object
      required:
        - message
        - code
      properties:
        message:
          type: string
        code:
          type: integer
          minimum: 100
          maximum: 600
    ExtendedErrorModel:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorModel'
        - type: object
          required:
            - rootCause
          properties:
            rootCause:
              type: string

Models with Polymorphism Support

The following example describes a Pet model that can represent either a cat or a dog, as distinguished by the petType property. Each type of pet has other properties beyond those of the base Pet model. An instance without a petType property, or with a petType property that does not match either cat or dog, is invalid.

components:
  schemas:
    Pet:
      type: object
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
      required:
        - name
        - petType
      oneOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    Cat:
      description: A pet cat
      type: object
      properties:
        petType:
          const: 'cat'
        huntingSkill:
          type: string
          description: The measured skill for hunting
          enum:
            - clueless
            - lazy
            - adventurous
            - aggressive
      required:
        - huntingSkill
    Dog:
      description: A pet dog
      type: object
      properties:
        petType:
          const: 'dog'
        packSize:
          type: integer
          format: int32
          description: the size of the pack the dog is from
          default: 0
          minimum: 0
      required:
        - packSize

Models with Polymorphism Support and a Discriminator Object

The following example extends the example of the previous section by adding a Discriminator Object to the Pet schema. Note that the Discriminator Object is only a hint to the consumer of the API and does not change the validation outcome of the schema.

components:
  schemas:
    Pet:
      type: object
      discriminator:
        propertyName: petType
        mapping:
          cat: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
          dog: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
      required:
        - name
        - petType
      oneOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    Cat:
      description: A pet cat
      type: object
      properties:
        petType:
          const: 'cat'
        huntingSkill:
          type: string
          description: The measured skill for hunting
          enum:
            - clueless
            - lazy
            - adventurous
            - aggressive
      required:
        - huntingSkill
    Dog:
      description: A pet dog
      type: object
      properties:
        petType:
          const: 'dog'
        packSize:
          type: integer
          format: int32
          description: the size of the pack the dog is from
          default: 0
          minimum: 0
      required:
        - petType
        - packSize

Models with Polymorphism Support using allOf and a Discriminator Object

It is also possible to describe polymorphic models using allOf. The following example uses allOf with a Discriminator Object to describe a polymorphic Pet model.

components:
  schemas:
    Pet:
      type: object
      discriminator:
        propertyName: petType
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
        petType:
          type: string
      required:
        - name
        - petType
    Cat: # "Cat" will be used as the discriminating value
      description: A representation of a cat
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
        - type: object
          properties:
            huntingSkill:
              type: string
              description: The measured skill for hunting
              enum:
                - clueless
                - lazy
                - adventurous
                - aggressive
          required:
            - huntingSkill
    Dog: # "Dog" will be used as the discriminating value
      description: A representation of a dog
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
        - type: object
          properties:
            packSize:
              type: integer
              format: int32
              description: the size of the pack the dog is from
              default: 0
              minimum: 0
          required:
            - packSize

Generic Data Structure Model

components:
  schemas:
    genericArrayComponent:
      $id: fully_generic_array
      type: array
      items:
        $dynamicRef: '#generic-array'
      $defs:
        allowAll:
          $dynamicAnchor: generic-array
    numberArray:
      $id: array_of_numbers
      $ref: fully_generic_array
      $defs:
        numbersOnly:
          $dynamicAnchor: generic-array
          type: number
    stringArray:
      $id: array_of_strings
      $ref: fully_generic_array
      $defs:
        stringsOnly:
          $dynamicAnchor: generic-array
          type: string
    objWithTypedArray:
      $id: obj_with_typed_array
      type: object
      required:
      - dataType
      - data
      properties:
        dataType:
          enum:
          - string
          - number
      oneOf:
      - properties:
          dataType:
            const: string
          data:
            $ref: array_of_strings
      - properties:
          dataType:
            const: number
          data:
            $ref: array_of_numbers

Discriminator ObjectExample

When request bodies or response payloads may be one of a number of different schemas, these should use the JSON Schema anyOf or oneOf keywords to describe the possible schemas (see Composition and Inheritance).

A polymorphic schema MAY include a Discriminator Object, which defines the name of the property that may be used as a hint for which schema of the anyOf or oneOf, or which schema that references the current schema in an allOf, is expected to validate the structure of the model. This hint can be used to aid in serialization, deserialization, and validation. The Discriminator Object does this by implicitly or explicitly associating the possible values of a named property with alternative schemas.

Note that discriminator MUST NOT change the validation outcome of the schema.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
propertyName	string	REQUIRED. The name of the discriminating property in the payload that will hold the discriminating value. The discriminating property MAY be defined as required or optional, but when defined as optional the Discriminator Object MUST include a defaultMapping field that specifies which schema is expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is not present.
mapping	Map[string, string]	An object to hold mappings between payload values and schema names or URI references.
defaultMapping	string	The schema name or URI reference to a schema that is expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is not present in the payload or contains a value for which there is no explicit or implicit mapping.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Conditions for Using the Discriminator ObjectExample

The Discriminator Object is legal only when using one of the composite keywords oneOf, anyOf, allOf.

In both the oneOf and anyOf use cases, where those keywords are adjacent to discriminator, all possible schemas MUST be listed explicitly.

To avoid redundancy, the discriminator MAY be added to a parent schema definition, and all schemas building on the parent schema via an allOf construct may be used as an alternate schema.

The allOf form of discriminator is only useful for non-validation use cases; validation with the parent schema with this form of discriminator does not perform a search for child schemas or use them in validation in any way. This is because discriminator cannot change the validation outcome, and no standard JSON Schema keyword connects the parent schema to the child schemas.

The behavior of any configuration of oneOf, anyOf, allOf and discriminator that is not described above is undefined.

Options for Mapping Values to SchemasExample

The value of the property named in propertyName is used as the name of the associated schema under the Components Object, unless a mapping is present for that value. The mapping entry maps a specific property value to either a different schema component name, or to a schema identified by a URI. When using implicit or explicit schema component names, inline oneOf or anyOf subschemas are not considered. The behavior of a mapping value or defaultMapping value that is both a valid schema name and a valid relative URI reference is implementation-defined, but it is RECOMMENDED that it be treated as a schema name. To ensure that an ambiguous value (e.g. "foo") is treated as a relative URI reference by all implementations, authors MUST prefix it with the "." path segment (e.g. "./foo").

Mapping keys MUST be string values, but tooling MAY convert response values to strings for comparison. However, the exact nature of such conversions are implementation-defined.

Optional Discriminating PropertyExample

When the discriminating property is defined as optional, the Discriminator Object MUST include a defaultMapping field that specifies a schema that is expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is not present in the payload or contains a value for which there is no explicit or implicit mapping. This allows the schema to still be validated correctly even if the discriminating property is missing.

The primary use case for an optional discriminating property is to allow a schema to be extended with a discriminator without breaking existing clients that do not provide the discriminating property.

When the discriminating property is defined as optional, it is important that each subschema that defines a value for the discriminating property also define the property as required, since this is no longer enforced by the parent schema.

The defaultMapping schema is also expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is present but contains a value for which there is no explicit or implicit mapping. This is typically expressed in the defaultMapping schema by excluding any instances with mapped values of the discriminating property, e.g.

OtherPet:
  type: object
  properties:
    petType:
      not:
        enum: ['cat', 'dog']

This prevents the defaultMapping schema from validating a payload that includes the discriminating property with a mapped discriminating value, which would cause a validation to fail when polymorphism is described using the oneOf JSON schema keyword.

ExamplesExample

For these examples, assume all schemas are in the entry document of the OAD; for handling of discriminator in referenced documents see Resolving Implicit Connections.

In OAS 3.x, a response payload MAY be described to be exactly one of any number of types:

MyResponseType:
  oneOf:
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Lizard'

which means a valid payload has to match exactly one of the schemas described by Cat, Dog, or Lizard. Deserialization of a oneOf can be a costly operation, as it requires determining which schema matches the payload and thus should be used in deserialization. This problem also exists for anyOf schemas. A discriminator can be used as a "hint" to improve the efficiency of selection of the matching schema. The Discriminator Object cannot change the validation result of the oneOf, it can only help make the deserialization more efficient and provide better error messaging. We can specify the exact field that tells us which schema is expected to match the instance:

MyResponseType:
  oneOf:
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Lizard'
  discriminator:
    propertyName: petType

The expectation now is that a property with name petType MUST be present in the response payload, and the value will correspond to the name of a schema defined in the OpenAPI Description. Thus the response payload:

{
  "id": 12345,
  "petType": "Cat"
}

will indicate that the Cat schema is expected to match this payload.

In scenarios where the value of the discriminating property does not match the schema name or implicit mapping is not possible, an optional mapping definition can be used:

MyResponseType:
  oneOf:
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Lizard'
    - $ref: https://gigantic-server.com/schemas/Monster/schema.json
  discriminator:
    propertyName: petType
    mapping:
      dog: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
      monster: https://gigantic-server.com/schemas/Monster/schema.json

Here the discriminating value of dog will map to the schema #/components/schemas/Dog, rather than the default (implicit) value of #/components/schemas/dog. If the discriminating value does not match an implicit or explicit mapping, no schema can be determined and validation SHOULD fail.

When used in conjunction with the anyOf construct, the use of the discriminator can avoid ambiguity for serializers/deserializers where multiple schemas may satisfy a single payload.

When the discriminating property is defined as optional, the Discriminator Object has to include a defaultMapping field that specifies a schema of the anyOf or oneOf is expected to validate the structure of the model when the discriminating property is not present in the payload. This allows the schema to still be validated correctly even if the discriminator property is missing.

For example:

MyResponseType:
  oneOf:
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Cat'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Dog'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Lizard'
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/OtherPet'
  discriminator:
    propertyName: petType
    defaultMapping: OtherPet
OtherPet:
  type: object
  properties:
    petType:
      not:
        enum: ['Cat', 'Dog', 'Lizard']

In this example, if the petType property is not present in the payload, or if the value of petType is not "Cat", "Dog", or "Lizard", then the payload should validate against the OtherPet schema.

This example shows the allOf usage, which avoids needing to reference all child schemas in the parent:

components:
  schemas:
    Pet:
      type: object
      required:
        - petType
      properties:
        petType:
          type: string
      discriminator:
        propertyName: petType
        mapping:
          dog: Dog
    Cat:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
        - type: object
          # all other properties specific to a `Cat`
          properties:
            name:
              type: string
    Dog:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
        - type: object
          # all other properties specific to a `Dog`
          properties:
            bark:
              type: string
    Lizard:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Pet'
        - type: object
          # all other properties specific to a `Lizard`
          properties:
            lovesRocks:
              type: boolean

Validated against the Pet schema, a payload like this:

{
  "petType": "Cat",
  "name": "Misty"
}

will indicate that the #/components/schemas/Cat schema is expected to match. Likewise this payload:

{
  "petType": "dog",
  "bark": "soft"
}

will map to #/components/schemas/Dog because the dog entry in the mapping element maps to Dog which is the schema name for #/components/schemas/Dog.

XML ObjectExample

A metadata object that allows for more fine-tuned XML model definitions. When using a Schema Object with XML, if no XML Object is present, the behavior is determined by the XML Object's default field values.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
nodeType	string	One of element, attribute, text, cdata, or none, as explained under XML Node Types. The default value is none if $ref, $dynamicRef, or type: "array" is present in the Schema Object containing the XML Object, and element otherwise.
name	string	Sets the name of the element/attribute corresponding to the schema, replacing the name that was inferred as described under XML Node Names. This field SHALL be ignored if the nodeType is text, cdata, or none.
namespace	string	The IRI ([[RFC3987]]) of the namespace definition. Value MUST be in the form of a non-relative IRI.
prefix	string	The prefix to be used for the name.
attribute	boolean	Declares whether the property definition translates to an attribute instead of an element. Default value is false. If nodeType is present, this field MUST NOT be present. Deprecated: Use nodeType: "attribute" instead of attribute: true
wrapped	boolean	MAY be used only for an array definition. Signifies whether the array is wrapped (for example, <books><book/><book/></books>) or unwrapped (<book/><book/>). Default value is false. The definition takes effect only when defined alongside type being "array" (outside the items). If nodeType is present, this field MUST NOT be present. Deprecated: Use nodeType: "element" instead of wrapped: true

Note that when generating an XML document from object data, the order of the nodes is undefined. Use prefixItems to control node ordering as shown under Ordered Elements and Text.

See Appendix B for a discussion of converting values of various types to string representations.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

XML Node TypesExample

Each Schema Object describes a particular type of XML [[!DOM]] node which is specified by the nodeType field, which has the following possible values. Except for the special value none, these values have numeric equivalents in the DOM specification which are given in parentheses after the name:

• element (1): The schema represents an element and describes its contents
• attribute (2): The schema represents an attribute and describes its value
• text (3): The schema represents a text node (parsed character data)
• cdata (4): The schema represents a CDATA section
• none: The schema does not correspond to any node in the XML document, and the nodes corresponding to its subschema(s) are included directly under its parent schema's node

The none type is useful for JSON Schema constructs that require more Schema Objects than XML nodes, such as a schema containing only $ref that exists to facilitate re-use rather than imply any structure.

Modeling Element Lists

For historical compatibility, schemas of type: "array" default to nodeType: "none", placing the nodes for each array item directly under the parent node. This also aligns with the inferred naming behavior defined under XML Node Names.

To produce an element wrapping the list, set an explicit nodeType: "element" on the type: "array" schema. When doing so, it is advisable to set an explicit name on either the wrapping element or the item elements to avoid them having the same inferred name. See examples for expected behavior.

Implicit and Explicit text Nodes

If an element node has a primitive type, then the schema also produces an implicit text node described by the schema for the contents of the element node named by the property name (or name field).

Explicit text nodes are necessary if an element has both attributes and content.

Note that placing two text nodes adjacent to each other is ambiguous for parsing, and the resulting behavior is implementation-defined.

XML Node NamesExample

The element and attribute node types require a name, which MUST be inferred from the schema as follows, unless overridden by the name field:

• For schemas directly under the Components Object's schemas field, the component name is the inferred name.
• For property schemas, and for array item schemas under a property schema, the property name is the inferred name.
• In all other cases, such as an inline schema under a Media Type Object's schema field, no name can be inferred and an XML Object with a name field MUST be present.

Note that when using arrays, singular vs plural forms are not inferred, and must be set explicitly.

Namespace LimitationsExample

The namespace field is intended to match the syntax of XML namespaces, although there are a few caveats:

• Versions 3.1.0, 3.0.3, and earlier of this specification erroneously used the term "absolute URI" instead of "non-relative URI" ("non-relative IRI" as of OAS v3.2.0), so authors using namespaces that include a fragment should check tooling support carefully.
• XML allows but discourages relative IRI-references, while this specification outright forbids them.

Handling null ValuesExample

XML does not, by default, have a concept equivalent to null, and to preserve compatibility with version 3.1.1 and earlier of this specification, the behavior of serializing null values is implementation-defined.

However, implementations SHOULD handle null values as follows:

• For elements, produce an empty element with an xsi:nil="true" attribute.
• For attributes, omit the attribute.
• For text and CDATA sections, see Appendix B for a discussion of serializing non-text values to text.

Note that for attributes, this makes either a null value or a missing property serialize to an omitted attribute. As the Schema Object validates the in-memory representation, this allows handling the combination of null and a required property. However, because there is no distinct way to represent null as an attribute, it is RECOMMENDED to make attribute properties optional rather than use null.

To ensure correct round-trip behavior, when parsing an element that omits an attribute, implementations SHOULD set the corresponding property to null if the schema allows for that value (e.g. type: ["number", "null"]), and omit the property otherwise (e.g.type: "number").

XML Object ExamplesExample

The Schema Objects are followed by an example XML representation produced for the schema shown. For examples using attribute or wrapped, please see version 3.1 of the OpenAPI Specification.

No XML Object

Basic string property without an XML Object, using serializedValue (the remaining examples will use externalValue so that the XML form can be shown with syntax highlighting):

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: string
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals: dog, cat, hamster
      serializedValue: |
        <document>
          <animals>dog, cat, hamster</animals>
        </document>

Basic string array property (nodeType is none by default):

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        items:
          type: string
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animals>dog</animals>
  <animals>cat</animals>
  <animals>hamster</animals>
</document>

XML Name Replacement

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: string
        xml:
          name: animal
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animal>dog</animal>
  <animal>cat</animal>
  <animal>hamster</animal>
</document>

XML Attribute, Prefix and Namespace

Note that the name of the root XML element comes from the component name.

components:
  schemas:
    Person:
      type: object
      properties:
        id:
          type: integer
          format: int32
          xml:
            nodeType: attribute
        name:
          type: string
          xml:
            namespace: https://example.com/schema/sample
            prefix: sample
  requestBodies:
    Person:
      content:
        application/xml:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/schemas/Person"
          examples:
            Person:
              dataValue:
                id: 123
                name: example
              externalValue: ./examples/Person.xml

Where ./examples/Person.xml would be:

<Person id="123">
  <sample:name xmlns:sample="https://example.com/schema/sample">example</sample:name>
</Person>

XML Arrays

Changing the element names:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        items:
          type: string
          xml:
            name: animal
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animal>dog</animal>
  <animal>cat</animal>
  <animal>hamster</animal>
</document>

The name field for the type: "array" schema has no effect because the default nodeType for that object is none:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        xml:
          name: aliens
        items:
          type: string
          xml:
            name: animal
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animal>dog</animal>
  <animal>cat</animal>
  <animal>hamster</animal>
</document>

Even when a wrapping element is explicitly created by setting nodeType to element, if a name is not explicitly defined, the same name will be used for both the wrapping element and the list item elements:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        xml:
          nodeType: element
        items:
          type: string
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animals>
    <animals>dog</animals>
    <animals>cat</animals>
    <animals>hamster</animals>
  </animals>
</document>

To overcome the naming problem in the example above, the following definition can be used:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        xml:
          nodeType: element
        items:
          type: string
          xml:
            name: animal
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <animals>
    <animal>dog</animal>
    <animal>cat</animal>
    <animal>hamster</animal>
  </animals>
</document>

Affecting both wrapping element and item element names:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        xml:
          name: aliens
          nodeType: element
        items:
          type: string
          xml:
            name: animal
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <aliens>
    <animal>dog</animal>
    <animal>cat</animal>
    <animal>hamster</animal>
  </aliens>
</document>

If we change the wrapping element name but not the item element names:

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: object
    xml:
      name: document
    properties:
      animals:
        type: array
        xml:
          name: aliens
          nodeType: element
        items:
          type: string
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
        animals:
          - dog
          - cat
          - hamster
      externalValue: ./examples/pets.xml

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<document>
  <aliens>
    <aliens>dog</aliens>
    <aliens>cat</aliens>
    <aliens>hamster</aliens>
  </aliens>
</document>

Elements With Attributes And Text

application/xml:
  schema:
    type: array
    xml:
      nodeType: element
      name: animals
    items:
      xml:
        name: animal
      properties:
        kind:
          type: string
          xml:
            nodeType: attribute
        name:
          type: string
          xml:
            nodeType: text
  examples:
    pets:
      dataValue:
      - kind: Cat
        name: Fluffy
      - kind: Dog
        name: Fido

Where ./examples/pets.xml would be:

<animals>
  <animal kind="Cat">Fluffy</animals>
  <animal kind="Dog">Fido</animals>
<animals>

Referenced Element With CDATA

In this example, no element is created for the Schema Object that contains only the $ref, as its nodeType defaults to none. It is necessary to create a subschema for the CDATA section as otherwise the content would be treated as an implicit node of type text.

components:
  schemas:
    Documentation:
      type: object
      properties:
        content:
          type: string
          contentMediaType: text/html
          xml:
            nodeType: cdata
  responses:
    content:
      application/xml:
        schema:
          $ref: "#/components/schemas/Documentation"
        examples:
          docs:
            dataValue:
              content: <html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>
            externalValue: ./examples/docs.xml

Where ./examples/docs.xml would be:

<Documentation>
  <![CDATA[<html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>]]>
</Documentation>

Alternatively, the named root element could be set at the point of use and the root element disabled on the component (note that in this example, the same dataValue is used in two places with different serializations shown with externalValue):

paths:
  /docs:
    get:
      responses:
        "200":
          content:
            application/xml:
              schema:
                xml:
                  nodeType: element
                  name: StoredDocument
                $ref: "#/components/schemas/Documentation"
              examples:
                stored:
                  dataValue:
                    content: <html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>
                  externalValue: ./examples/stored.xml
    put:
      requestBody:
        required: true
        content:
          application/xml:
            schema:
              xml:
                nodeType: element
                name: UpdatedDocument
              $ref: "#/components/schemas/Documentation"
            examples:
              updated:
                dataValue:
                  content: <html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>
                externalValue: ./examples/updated.xml
      responses:
        "201": {}
components:
  schemas:
    Documentation:
      xml:
        nodeType: none
      type: object
      properties:
        content:
          type: string
          contentMediaType: text/html
          xml:
            nodeType: cdata

where ./examples/stored.xml would be:

<StoredDocument>
  <![CDATA[<html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>]]>
</StoredDocument>

and ./examples/updated.xml would be:

<UpdatedDocument>
  <![CDATA[<html><head><title>Awesome Docs</title></head><body></body><html>]]>
</UpdatedDocument>

Ordered Elements and Text

To control the exact order of elements, use the prefixItems keyword. With this approach, it is necessary to set the element names using the XML Object as they would otherwise all inherit the parent's name despite being different elements in a specific order. It is also necessary to set nodeType: "element" explicitly on the array in order to get an element containing the sequence.

This first ordered example shows a sequence of elements, as well as the recommended serialization of null for elements:

application/xml:
  schema:
    xml:
      nodeType: element
      name: OneTwoThree
    type: array
    minLength: 3
    maxLength: 3
    prefixItems:
    - xml:
        name: One
      type: string
    - xml:
        name: Two
      type: object
      required:
      - unit
      - value
      properties:
        unit:
          type: string
          xml:
            nodeType: attribute
        value:
          type: number
          xml:
            nodeType: text
    - xml:
        name: Three
      type:
      - boolean
      - "null"
  examples:
    OneTwoThree:
      dataValue:
        - Some text
        - unit: cubits
          value: 42
        null
      ]
      externalValue: ./examples/OneTwoThree.xml

Where ./examples/OneTwoThree.xml would be:

<OneTwoThree>
  <One>Some text</One>
  <Two unit="cubits">42</Two>
  <Three xsi:nil="true" />
</OneTwoThree>

In this next example, the name needs to be set for the element, while the nodeType needs to be set for the text nodes.

application/xml:
  schema:
    xml:
      nodeType: element
      name: Report
    type: array
    prefixItems:
    - xml:
        nodeType: text
      type: string
    - xml:
        name: data
      type: number
    - xml:
        nodeType: text
      type: string
  examples:
    Report:
      dataValue:
        - Some preamble text.
        - 42
        - Some postamble text.
      externalValue: ./examples/Report.xml

Where ./examples/Report.xml would be:

<Report>Some preamble text.<data>42</data>Some postamble text.</Report>

XML With null Values

Recall that the schema validates the in-memory data, not the XML document itself. This example does not define properties for "related" as it is showing how empty objects and null are handled.

application/xml:
  schema:
    xml:
      name: product
    type: object
    required:
    - count
    - description
    - related
    properties:
      count:
        type:
        - number
        - "null"
        xml:
          nodeType: attribute
      rating:
        type: string
        xml:
          nodeType: attribute
      description:
        type: string
      related:
        type:
        - object
        - "null"
  examples:
    productWithNulls:
      dataValue:
        count: null
        description: Thing
        related: null
      externalValue: ./examples/productWithNulls.xml
    productNoNulls:
      dataValue:
        count: 42
        description: Thing
        related: {}
      externalValue: ./examples/productNoNulls.xml

Where ./examples/productWithNulls.xml would be:

<product>
  <description>Thing</description>
  <related xsi:nil="true" />
</product>

and ./examples/productNoNulls.xml would be:

<product count="42">
  <description>Thing</description>
  <related></related>
</product>

Security Scheme ObjectExample

Defines a security scheme that can be used by the operations.

Supported schemes are HTTP authentication, an API key (either as a header, a cookie parameter or as a query parameter), mutual TLS (use of a client certificate), OAuth2's common flows (implicit, password, client credentials and authorization code) as defined in RFC6749, OAuth2 device authorization flow as defined in RFC8628, and [[OpenID-Connect-Core]]. Please note that as of 2020, the implicit flow is about to be deprecated by OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice. Recommended for most use cases is Authorization Code Grant flow with PKCE.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Applies To	Description
type	string	Any	REQUIRED. The type of the security scheme. Valid values are "apiKey", "http", "mutualTLS", "oauth2", "openIdConnect".
description	string	Any	A description for security scheme. CommonMark syntax MAY be used for rich text representation.
name	string	apiKey	REQUIRED. The name of the header, query or cookie parameter to be used.
in	string	apiKey	REQUIRED. The location of the API key. Valid values are "query", "header", or "cookie".
scheme	string	http	REQUIRED. The name of the HTTP Authentication scheme to be used in the Authorization header as defined in RFC9110. The values used SHOULD be registered in the IANA Authentication Scheme registry. The value is case-insensitive, as defined in RFC9110.
bearerFormat	string	http ("bearer")	A hint to the client to identify how the bearer token is formatted. Bearer tokens are usually generated by an authorization server, so this information is primarily for documentation purposes.
flows	OAuth Flows Object	oauth2	REQUIRED. An object containing configuration information for the flow types supported.
openIdConnectUrl	string	openIdConnect	REQUIRED. Well-known URL to discover the [[OpenID-Connect-Discovery]] provider metadata.
oauth2MetadataUrl	string	oauth2	URL to the OAuth2 authorization server metadata RFC8414. TLS is required.
deprecated	boolean	Any	Declares this security scheme to be deprecated. Consumers SHOULD refrain from usage of the declared scheme. Default value is false.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

Security Scheme Object ExamplesExample

Basic Authentication Example

type: http
scheme: basic

API Key Example

type: apiKey
name: api-key
in: header

JWT Bearer Example

type: http
scheme: bearer
bearerFormat: JWT

MutualTLS Example

type: mutualTLS
description: Cert must be signed by example.com CA

Implicit OAuth2 Example

type: oauth2
flows:
  implicit:
    authorizationUrl: https://example.com/api/oauth/dialog
    scopes:
      write:pets: modify pets in your account
      read:pets: read your pets

OAuth Flows ObjectExample

Allows configuration of the supported OAuth Flows.

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Description
implicit	OAuth Flow Object	Configuration for the OAuth Implicit flow
password	OAuth Flow Object	Configuration for the OAuth Resource Owner Password flow
clientCredentials	OAuth Flow Object	Configuration for the OAuth Client Credentials flow. Previously called application in OpenAPI 2.0.
authorizationCode	OAuth Flow Object	Configuration for the OAuth Authorization Code flow. Previously called accessCode in OpenAPI 2.0.
deviceAuthorization	OAuth Flow Object	Configuration for the OAuth Device Authorization flow.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

OAuth Flow ObjectExample

Configuration details for a supported OAuth Flow

Fixed FieldsExample

Field Name	Type	Applies To	Description
authorizationUrl	string	oauth2 ("implicit", "authorizationCode")	REQUIRED. The authorization URL to be used for this flow. This MUST be in the form of a URL. The OAuth2 standard requires the use of TLS.
deviceAuthorizationUrl	string	oauth2 ("deviceAuthorization")	REQUIRED. The device authorization URL to be used for this flow. This MUST be in the form of a URL. The OAuth2 standard requires the use of TLS.
tokenUrl	string	oauth2 ("password", "clientCredentials", "authorizationCode", "deviceAuthorization")	REQUIRED. The token URL to be used for this flow. This MUST be in the form of a URL. The OAuth2 standard requires the use of TLS.
refreshUrl	string	oauth2	The URL to be used for obtaining refresh tokens. This MUST be in the form of a URL. The OAuth2 standard requires the use of TLS.
scopes	Map[string, string]	oauth2	REQUIRED. The available scopes for the OAuth2 security scheme. A map between the scope name and a short description for it. The map MAY be empty.

This object MAY be extended with Specification Extensions.

OAuth Flow Object ExampleExample

type: oauth2
flows:
  implicit:
    authorizationUrl: https://example.com/api/oauth/dialog
    scopes:
      write:pets: modify pets in your account
      read:pets: read your pets
  authorizationCode:
    authorizationUrl: https://example.com/api/oauth/dialog
    tokenUrl: https://example.com/api/oauth/token
    scopes:
      write:pets: modify pets in your account
      read:pets: read your pets

Security Requirement ObjectExample

Lists the required security schemes to execute this operation.

The name used for each property MUST either correspond to a security scheme declared in the Security Schemes under the Components Object, or be the URI of a Security Scheme Object. Property names that are identical to a component name under the Components Object MUST be treated as a component name. To reference a Security Scheme with a single-segment relative URI reference (e.g. foo) that collides with a component name (e.g. #/components/securitySchemes/foo), use the . path segment (e.g. ./foo).

Using a Security Scheme component name that appears to be a URI is NOT RECOMMENDED, as the precedence of component-name-matching over URI resolution, which is necessary to maintain compatibility with prior OAS versions, is counter-intuitive. See also Security Considerations.

A Security Requirement Object MAY refer to multiple security schemes in which case all schemes MUST be satisfied for a request to be authorized. This enables support for scenarios where multiple query parameters or HTTP headers are required to convey security information.

When the security field is defined on the OpenAPI Object or Operation Object and contains multiple Security Requirement Objects, only one of the entries in the list needs to be satisfied to authorize the request. This enables support for scenarios where the API allows multiple, independent security schemes.

An empty Security Requirement Object ({}) indicates anonymous access is supported.

Patterned FieldsExample

Field Pattern	Type	Description
{name}	[string]	Each name or URI MUST correspond to a security scheme as described above. If the security scheme is of type "oauth2" or "openIdConnect", then the value is a list of scope names required for the execution, and the list MAY be empty if authorization does not require a specified scope. For other security scheme types, the array MAY contain a list of role names which are required for the execution, but are not otherwise defined or exchanged in-band.

Security Requirement Object ExamplesExample

See also Implicit Connection Resolution Examples in Appendix G: Parsing and Resolution Guidance for an example using Security Requirement Objects in multi-document OpenAPI Descriptions.

Non-OAuth2 Security Requirement

api_key: []

OAuth2 Security Requirement

This example uses a component name for the Security Scheme.

petstore_auth:
  - write:pets
  - read:pets

Optional OAuth2 Security

This example uses a relative URI reference for the Security Scheme.

Optional OAuth2 security as would be defined in an OpenAPI Object or an Operation Object:

security:
  - {}
  - petstore_auth:
      - write:pets
      - read:pets

Specification Extensions

While the OpenAPI Specification tries to accommodate most use cases, additional data can be added to extend the specification at certain points.

The extensions properties are implemented as patterned fields that are always prefixed by x-.

Field Pattern	Type	Description
^x-	Any	Allows extensions to the OpenAPI Schema. The field name MUST begin with x-, for example, x-internal-id. Field names beginning x-oai- and x-oas- are reserved for uses defined by the OpenAPI Initiative. The value can be any valid JSON value (null, a primitive, an array, or an object.)

The OpenAPI Initiative maintains several [[OpenAPI-Registry|extension registries]], including registries for individual extension keywords and extension keyword namespaces.

Extensions are one of the best ways to prove the viability of proposed additions to the specification. It is therefore RECOMMENDED that implementations be designed for extensibility to support community experimentation.

Support for any one extension is OPTIONAL, and support for one extension does not imply support for others.

Security Considerations

OpenAPI Description Formats

OpenAPI Descriptions use a combination of JSON, YAML, and JSON Schema, and therefore share their security considerations:

• JSON
• YAML
• JSON Schema Core
• JSON Schema Validation

Tooling and Usage Scenarios

In addition, OpenAPI Descriptions are processed by a wide variety of tooling for numerous different purposes, such as client code generation, documentation generation, server side routing, and API testing. OpenAPI Description authors must consider the risks of the scenarios where the OpenAPI Description may be used.

Security Schemes

An OpenAPI Description describes the security schemes used to protect the resources it defines. The security schemes available offer varying degrees of protection. Factors such as the sensitivity of the data and the potential impact of a security breach should guide the selection of security schemes for the API resources. Some security schemes, such as basic auth and OAuth Implicit flow, are supported for compatibility with existing APIs. However, their inclusion in OpenAPI does not constitute an endorsement of their use, particularly for highly sensitive data or operations.

The rules for connecting a Security Requirement Object to a Security Scheme Object under a Components Object are ambiguous in a way that could be exploited. Specifically:

• It is implementation-defined whether a component name used by a Security Requirement Object in a referenced document is resolved from the entry document (RECOMMENDED) or the referenced document.
• A Security Requirement Object that uses a URI to identify a Security Scheme Object can have the URI resolution hijacked by providing a Security Scheme component name identical to the URI, as the name lookup behavior takes precedence over URI resolution for compatibility with previous versions of the OAS.

Security Filtering

Some objects in the OpenAPI Specification MAY be declared and remain empty, or be completely removed, even though they are inherently the core of the API documentation.

The reasoning is to allow an additional layer of access control over the documentation. While not part of the specification itself, certain libraries MAY choose to allow access to parts of the documentation based on some form of authentication/authorization.

Two examples of this:

1. The Paths Object MAY be present but empty. It may be counterintuitive, but this may tell the viewer that they got to the right place, but can't access any documentation. They would still have access to at least the Info Object which may contain additional information regarding authentication.
2. The Path Item Object MAY be empty. In this case, the viewer will be aware that the path exists, but will not be able to see any of its operations or parameters. This is different from hiding the path itself from the Paths Object, because the user will be aware of its existence. This allows the documentation provider to finely control what the viewer can see.

Handling External Resources

OpenAPI Descriptions may contain references to external resources that may be dereferenced automatically by consuming tools. External resources may be hosted on different domains that may be untrusted.

Handling Reference Cycles

References in an OpenAPI Description may cause a cycle. Tooling must detect and handle cycles to prevent resource exhaustion.

Markdown and HTML Sanitization

Certain fields allow the use of Markdown which can contain HTML including script. It is the responsibility of tooling to appropriately sanitize the Markdown.

Appendix A: Revision History

Version	Date	Notes
3.2.0	2025-09-19	Release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.2.0
3.1.2	2025-09-19	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.1.2
3.1.1	2024-10-24	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.1.1
3.1.0	2021-02-15	Release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.1.0
3.1.0-rc1	2020-10-08	rc1 of the 3.1 specification
3.1.0-rc0	2020-06-18	rc0 of the 3.1 specification
3.0.4	2024-10-24	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.0.4
3.0.3	2020-02-20	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.0.3
3.0.2	2018-10-08	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.0.2
3.0.1	2017-12-06	Patch release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.0.1
3.0.0	2017-07-26	Release of the OpenAPI Specification 3.0.0
3.0.0-rc2	2017-06-16	rc2 of the 3.0 specification
3.0.0-rc1	2017-04-27	rc1 of the 3.0 specification
3.0.0-rc0	2017-02-28	Implementer's Draft of the 3.0 specification
2.0	2015-12-31	Donation of Swagger 2.0 to the OpenAPI Initiative
2.0	2014-09-08	Release of Swagger 2.0
1.2	2014-03-14	Initial release of the formal document.
1.1	2012-08-22	Release of Swagger 1.1
1.0	2011-08-10	First release of the Swagger Specification

Appendix B: Data Type Conversion

Serializing typed data to plain text, which can occur in text/plain message bodies or multipart parts, as well as in the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format in either URL query strings or message bodies, involves significant implementation- or application-defined behavior.

Schema Objects validate data based on the JSON Schema data model, which only recognizes four primitive data types: strings (which are only broadly interoperable as UTF-8), numbers, booleans, and null. Notably, integers are not a distinct type from other numbers, with type: "integer" being a convenience defined mathematically, rather than based on the presence or absence of a decimal point in any string representation.

The Parameter Object, Header Object, and Encoding Object offer features to control how to arrange values from array or object types. They can also be used to control how strings are further encoded to avoid reserved or illegal characters. However, there is no general-purpose specification for converting schema-validated non-UTF-8 primitive data types (or entire arrays or objects) to strings.

Two cases do offer standards-based guidance:

• RFC3987 provides guidance for converting non-Unicode strings to UTF-8, particularly in the context of URIs (and by extension, the form media types which use the same encoding rules)
• RFC6570 specifies which values, including but not limited to null, are considered undefined and therefore treated specially in the expansion process when serializing based on that specification

Implementations of RFC6570 often have their own conventions for converting non-string values, but these are implementation-specific and not defined by the RFC itself. This is one reason for the OpenAPI Specification to leave these conversions as implementation-defined: It allows using RFC6570 implementations regardless of how they choose to perform the conversions.

To control the serialization of numbers, booleans, and null (or other values RFC6570 deems to be undefined) more precisely, schemas can be defined as type: "string" and constrained using pattern, enum, format, and other keywords to communicate how applications must pre-convert their data prior to schema validation. The resulting strings would not require any further type conversion.

The format keyword can assist in serialization. Some formats (such as date-time) are unambiguous, while others (such as decimal in the Format Registry) are less clear. However, care must be taken with format to ensure that the specific formats are supported by all relevant tools as unrecognized formats are ignored.

Requiring input as pre-formatted, schema-validated strings also improves round-trip interoperability as not all programming languages and environments support the same data types.

Appendix C: Using RFC6570-Based Serialization

Serialization is defined in terms of RFC6570 URI Templates in three scenarios:

Object	Condition
Parameter Object	When schema is present
Header Object	When schema is present
Encoding Object	When encoding for application/x-www-form-urlencoded and any of style, explode, or allowReserved are used

Implementations of this specification MAY use an implementation of RFC6570 to perform variable expansion, however, some caveats apply.

Note that when using style: "form" RFC6570 expansion to produce an application/x-www-form-urlencoded HTTP message body, it is necessary to remove the ? prefix that is produced to satisfy the URI query string syntax.

When using style and similar keywords to produce a multipart/form-data body, the query string names are placed in the name parameter of the Content-Disposition part header, and the values are placed in the corresponding part body; the ?, =, and & characters are not used, and URI percent encoding is not applied, regardless of the value of allowReserved. Note that while RFC7578 allows using [[RFC3986]] percent-encoding in "file names", it does not otherwise address the use of percent-encoding within the format. Users are expected to provide names and data with any escaping necessary for conformance with RFC7578 already applied.

Note also that not all RFC6570 implementations support all four levels of operators, all of which are needed to fully support the OpenAPI Specification's usage. Using an implementation with a lower level of support will require additional manual construction of URI Templates to work around the limitations.

Equivalences Between Fields and RFC6570 Operators

Certain field values translate to RFC6570 operators (or lack thereof):

field	value	equivalent
style	"simple"	n/a
style	"matrix"	; prefix operator
style	"label"	. prefix operator
style	"form"	? prefix operator
allowReserved	false	n/a
allowReserved	true	+ prefix operator
explode	false	n/a
explode	true	* modifier suffix

Multiple style: "form" parameters are equivalent to a single RFC6570 variable list using the ? prefix operator:

parameters:
- name: foo
  in: query
  schema:
    type: object
  explode: true
- name: bar
  in: query
  schema:
    type: string

This example is equivalent to RFC6570's {?foo*,bar}, and NOT {?foo*}{&bar}. The latter is problematic because if foo is not defined, the result will be an invalid URI. The & prefix operator has no equivalent in the Parameter Object.

Note that RFC6570 does not specify behavior for compound values beyond the single level addressed by explode. The result of using objects or arrays where no behavior is clearly specified for them is implementation-defined.

Delimiters in Parameter Values

Delimiters used by RFC6570 expansion, such as the , used to join arrays or object values with style: "simple", are all automatically percent-encoded as long as allowReserved is false. Note that since RFC6570 does not define a way to parse variables based on a URI Template, users must take care to first split values by delimiter before percent-decoding values that might contain the delimiter character.

When allowReserved is true, both percent-encoding (prior to joining values with a delimiter) and percent-decoding (after splitting on the delimiter) must be done manually at the correct time.

See Appendix E for additional guidance on handling delimiters for style values with no RFC6570 equivalent that already need to be percent-encoded when used as delimiters.

Non-RFC6570 Field Values and Combinations

Configurations with no direct RFC6570 equivalent SHOULD also be handled according to RFC6570. Implementations MAY create a properly delimited URI Template with variables for individual names and values using RFC6570 regular or reserved expansion (based on allowReserved).

This includes:

• the styles pipeDelimited, spaceDelimited, and deepObject, which have no equivalents at all
• the combination of the style form with allowReserved: true, which is not allowed because only one prefix operator can be used at a time
• any parameter name that is not a legal RFC6570 variable name

The Parameter Object's name field has a much more permissive syntax than RFC6570 variable name syntax. A parameter name that includes characters outside of the allowed RFC6570 variable character set MUST be percent-encoded before it can be used in a URI Template.

ExamplesExample

Let's say we want to use the following data in a form query string, where formulas is exploded, and words is not:

formulas:
  a: x+y
  b: x/y
  c: x^y
words:
- math
- is
- fun

RFC6570-Equivalent Expansion

This array of Parameter Objects uses regular style: "form" expansion, fully supported by RFC6570:

parameters:
- name: formulas
  in: query
  schema:
    type: object
    additionalProperties:
      type: string
  explode: true
- name: words
  in: query
  schema:
    type: array
    items:
      type: string

This translates to the following URI Template:

{?formulas*,words}

when expanded with the data given earlier, we get:

?a=x%2By&b=x%2Fy&c=x%5Ey&words=math,is,fun

Expansion with Non-RFC6570-Supported Options

But now let's say that (for some reason), we really want that / in the b formula to show up as-is in the query string, and we want our words to be space-separated like in a written phrase. To do that, we'll add allowReserved: true to formulas, and change to style: "spaceDelimited" for words:

parameters:
- name: formulas
  in: query
  schema:
    type: object
    additionalProperties:
      type: string
  explode: true
  allowReserved: true
- name: words
  in: query
  style: spaceDelimited
  explode: false
  schema:
    type: array
    items:
      type: string

We can't combine the ? and + RFC6570 prefixes, and there's no way with RFC6570 to replace the , separator with a space character. So we need to restructure the data to fit a manually constructed URI Template that passes all of the pieces through the right sort of expansion.

Here is one such template, using a made-up convention of words.0 for the first entry in the words value, words.1 for the second, and words.2 for the third:

?a={+a}&b={+b}&c={+c}&words={words.0} {words.1} {words.2}

RFC6570 mentions the use of . "to indicate name hierarchy in substructures," but does not define any specific naming convention or behavior for it. Since the . usage is not automatic, we'll need to construct an appropriate input structure for this new template.

We'll also need to pre-process the values for formulas because while / and most other reserved characters are allowed in the query string by RFC3986, [, ], and # are not, and &, =, and + all have special behavior in the application/x-www-form-urlencoded format, which is what we are using in the query string.

Setting allowReserved: true does not make reserved characters that are not allowed in URIs allowed, it just allows them to be passed through expansion unchanged, for example because some other specification has defined a particular meaning for them.

Therefore, users still need to percent-encode any reserved characters that are not being passed through due to a special meaning because reserved expansion does not know which reserved characters are being used, and which should still be percent-encoded. However, reserved expansion, unlike regular expansion, will leave the pre-percent-encoded triples unchanged. See also Appendix E for further guidance on percent-encoding and form media types, including guidance on handling the delimiter characters for spaceDelimited, pipeDelimited, and deepObject in parameter names and values.

So here is our data structure that arranges the names and values to suit the template above, where values for formulas have []#&=+ pre-percent encoded (although only + appears in this example):

a: x%2By
b: x/y
c: x^y
words.0: math
words.1: is
words.2: fun

Expanding our manually assembled template with our restructured data yields the following query string:

?a=x%2By&b=x/y&c=x%5Ey&words=math%20is%20fun

The / and the pre-percent-encoded %2B have been left alone, but the disallowed ^ character (inside a value) and space characters (in the template but outside of the expanded variables) were percent-encoded.

Undefined Values and Manual URI Template Construction

Care must be taken when manually constructing templates to handle the values that RFC6570 considers to be undefined correctly:

formulas: {}
words:
- hello
- world

Using this data with our original RFC6570-friendly URI Template, {?formulas*,words}, produces the following:

?words=hello,world

This means that the manually constructed URI Template and restructured data need to leave out the formulas object entirely so that the words parameter is the first and only parameter in the query string.

Restructured data:

words.0: hello
words.1: world

Manually constructed URI Template:

?words={words.0} {words.1}

Result:

?words=hello%20world

Illegal Variable Names as Parameter Names

In this example, the heart emoji is not legal in URI Template names (or URIs):

parameters:
- name: ❤️
  in: query
  schema:
    type: string

We can't just pass ❤️: "love!" to an RFC6570 implementation. Instead, we have to pre-percent-encode the name (which is a six-octet UTF-8 sequence) in both the data and the URI Template:

"%E2%9D%A4%EF%B8%8F": love!

{?%E2%9D%A4%EF%B8%8F}

This will expand to the result:

?%E2%9D%A4%EF%B8%8F=love%21

Appendix D: Serializing Headers and Cookies

HTTP headers have inconsistent rules regarding what characters are allowed, and how some or all disallowed characters can be escaped and included. While the quoted-string ABNF rule given in [[RFC9110]] Section 5.4.6 is the most common escaping solution, it is not sufficiently universal to apply automatically. For example, a strong ETag looks like "foo" (with quotes, regardless of the contents), and a weak ETag looks like W/"foo" (note that only part of the value is quoted); the contents of the quotes for this header are also not escaped in the way quoted-string contents are.

For this reason, any data being passed to a header by way of a Parameter or Header Object needs to be quoted and escaped prior to passing it to the OAS implementation, and the parsed header values are expected to contain the quotes and escapes.

Percent-Encoding and Cookies

RFC6570's percent-encoding behavior is not always appropriate for in: "cookie" parameters. While percent-encoding seems more common as an escaping mechanism than the base64 encoding (contentEncoding: "base64") recommended by [[RFC6265]], section 5.6 of draft-ietf-httpbis-rfc6265bis-20, the proposed update to that RFC notes that cookies sent in the Set-Cookie response header that appear to be percent-encoded MUST NOT be decoded when stored by the client, which would mean that they are already encoded when retrieved from that storage for use in the Cookie request header. The behavior of style: "cookie" assumes this usage, and does not apply or remove percent-encoding.

If automatic percent-encoding is desired, style: "form" with a primitive value or with the non-default explode value of false provides this behavior. However, note that the default value of explode: true for style: "form" with non-primitive values uses the wrong delimiter for cookies (& instead of ; followed by a single space) to set multiple cookie values. Using style: "form" with in: "cookie" via an RFC6570 implementation requires stripping the ? prefix, as when producing application/x-www-form-urlencoded message bodies. To allow the full use of style: "form" with in: "cookie", use the allowReserved field.

Appendix E: Percent-Encoding and Form Media Types

NOTE: In this section, the application/x-www-form-urlencoded and multipart/form-data media types are abbreviated as form-urlencoded and form-data, respectively, for readability.

Percent-encoding is used in URIs and media types that derive their syntax from URIs. The fundamental rules of percent-encoding are:

• The set of characters that MUST be encoded varies depending on which version of which specification you use, and (for URIs) in which part of the URI the character appears.
• The way an unencoded + character is decoded depends on whether you are using application/x-www-form-urlencoded rules or more general URI rules; this is the only time where choice of decoding algorithm can change the outcome.
• Encoding more characters than necessary is always safe in terms of the decoding process, but may produce non-normalized URIs.
• In practice, some systems tolerate or even expect unencoded characters that some or all percent-encoding specifications require to be encoded; this can cause interoperability issues with more strictly compliant implementations.

The rest of this appendix provides more detailed guidance based on the above rules.

Percent-Encoding Character Classes

This process is concerned with three classes of characters, the names of which vary among specifications but are defined as follows for the purposes of this section:

• unreserved characters do not need to be percent-encoded; while it is safe to percent-encode them, doing so produces a URI that is not normalized
• reserved characters either have special behavior in the URI syntax (such as delimiting components) or are reserved for other specifications that need to define special behavior (e.g. form-urlencoded defines special behavior for =, &, and +)
• unsafe characters are known to cause problems when parsing URIs in certain environments

Unless otherwise specified, this section uses RFC3986's definition of reserved and unreserved, and defines the unsafe set as all characters not included in either of those sets.

Percent-Encoding and form-urlencoded

Each URI component (such as the query string) considers some of the reserved characters to be unsafe, either because they serve as delimiters between the components (e.g. #), or (in the case of [ and ]) were historically considered globally unsafe but were later given reserved status for limited purposes.

Reserved characters with no special meaning defined within a component can be left un-percent encoded. However, other specifications can define special meanings, requiring percent-encoding for those characters outside of the additional special meanings.

The form-urlencoded media type defines special meanings for = and & as delimiters, and + as the replacement for the space character (instead of its percent-encoded form of %20). This means that while these three characters are reserved-but-allowed in query strings by RFC3986, they must be percent-encoded in form-urlencoded query strings except when used for their form-urlencoded purposes; see Appendix C for an example of handling + in form values.

Percent-Encoding and form-data

RFC7578 suggests RFC3986-based percent-encoding as a mechanism to keep text-based per-part header data such as file names within the ASCII character set. This suggestion was not part of older (pre-2015) specifications for form-data, so care must be taken to ensure interoperability. Users wishing to use percent-encoding in this way MUST provide the data in percent-encoded form, as percent-encoding is not automatically applied for this media type regardless of which Encoding Object fields are used.

The form-data media type allows arbitrary text or binary data in its parts, so percent-encoding or similar escaping is not needed in general.

Generating and Validating URIs and form-urlencoded Strings

URI percent encoding and the form-urlencoded media type have complex specification histories spanning multiple revisions and, in some cases, conflicting claims of ownership by different standards bodies. Unfortunately, these specifications each define slightly different percent-encoding rules, which need to be taken into account if the URIs or form-urlencoded message bodies will be subject to strict validation. (Note that many URI parsers do not perform validation by default, if at all.)

This specification normatively cites the following relevant standards:

Specification	Date	OAS Usage	Percent-Encoding	Notes
RFC3986	01/2005	URI/URL syntax, including non-form-urlencoded content-based serialization	[[RFC3986]]	obsoletes [[?RFC1738]], [[?RFC2396]]
RFC6570	03/2012	style-based serialization	[[RFC3986]]	does not use + for query strings
WHATWG-URL Section 5	"living" standard	content-based form/url-encoded serialization, including HTTP message contents	WHATWG-URL Section 1.3	obsoletes [[?RFC1866]], [[?HTML401]]

Style-based serialization with percent-encoding is used in the Parameter Object when schema is present, and in the Encoding Object when at least one of style, explode, or allowReserved is present. See Appendix C for more details of RFC6570's two different approaches to percent-encoding, including an example involving +.

Content-based serialization is defined by the Media Type Object, and used with the Parameter Object and Header Object when the content field is present, and with the Encoding Object based on the contentType field when the fields style, explode, and allowReserved are absent. For use in URIs, each part is encoded based on the media type (e.g. text/plain or application/json), and must then be percent-encoded for use in a form-urlencoded string (in form-style query strings), or for general URI use in other URL components, unless the media type already incorporates URI percent-encoding.

Interoperability with Historical Specifications

Prior versions of this specification required [[?RFC1866]] and its use of [[?RFC1738]] percent-encoding rules in place of [[WHATWG-URL]]. The [[WHATWG-URL]] form-urlencoded rules represent the current browser consensus on that media type, and avoid the ambiguity introduced by unclear paraphrasing of RFC1738 in RFC1866.

Users needing conformance with RFC1866/RFC1738 are advised to check their tooling and library behavior carefully.

Interoperability with Web Browser Environments

WHATWG is a web browser-oriented standards group that has defined a "URL Living Standard" for parsing and serializing URLs in a browser context, including parsing and serializing form-urlencoded data. WHATWG's percent-encoding rules for query strings are different depending on whether the query string is being treated as form-urlencoded (where it requires more percent-encoding than [[?RFC1738]]) or as part of the generic syntax, where its requirements differ from [[RFC3986]].

This specification only depends on WHATWG for its form-urlencoded specification. Implementations using the query string in other ways are advised that, the distinctions between WHATWG's non-form-urlencoded query string rules and RFC3986 require careful consideration, incorporating both WHATWG's percent-encoding sets and their set of valid Unicode code points for URLs; see Percent-Encoding and Illegal or Reserved Delimiters for more information.

Decoding URIs and form-urlencoded Strings

The percent-decoding algorithm does not care which characters were or were not percent-decoded, which means that URIs percent-encoded according to any specification will be decoded correctly.

Similarly, all form-urlencoded decoding algorithms simply add +-for-space handling to the percent-decoding algorithm, and will work regardless of the encoding specification used.

However, care must be taken to use form-urlencoded decoding if + represents a space, and to use regular percent-decoding if + represents itself as a literal value.

Percent-Encoding and Illegal or Reserved Delimiters

The [, ], |, and space characters, which are used as delimiters for the deepObject, pipeDelimited, and spaceDelimited styles, respectively, all MUST be percent-encoded to comply with [[RFC3986]]. This requires users to pre-encode the character(s) in some other way in parameter names and values to distinguish them from the delimiter usage when using one of these styles.

The space character is always illegal and encoded in some way by all implementations of all versions of the relevant standards. While one could use the form-urlencoded convention of + to distinguish spaces in parameter names and values from spaceDelimited delimiters encoded as %20, the specifications define the decoding as a single pass, making it impossible to distinguish the different usages in the decoded result unless a non-standard parsing algorithm is used that separates based on one delimiter before decoding the other. Any such non-standard parsing approach will not be interoperable across all tools.

Some environments use [, ], and possibly | unencoded in query strings without apparent difficulties. WHATWG's generic query string rules do not require percent-encoding them in non-form-urlencoded query strings, although it also excludes them from the set of valid URL Unicode code points. Code that relies on leaving these delimiters unencoded, while using regular percent-encoding for them within names and values, is not guaranteed to be interoperable across all implementations.

For maximum interoperability, it is RECOMMENDED to either define and document an additional escape convention while percent-encoding the delimiters for these styles, or to avoid these styles entirely. The exact method of additional encoding/escaping is left to the API designer, and is expected to be performed before serialization and encoding described in this specification, and reversed after this specification's encoding and serialization steps are reversed. This keeps it outside of the processes governed by this specification.

Appendix F: Examples of Base URI Determination and Reference Resolution

This section shows each of the four possible sources of base URIs, followed by an example with a relative $self and $id.

Base URI Within Content

A base URI within the resource's content (RFC3986) is the highest-precedence source of a base URI. For OpenAPI documents, this source is the OpenAPI Object's $self field, while for Schema Objects that contain a $id, or are a subschema of a Schema Object containing a $id, the source is the $id field:

Assume the retrieval URI of the following document is file://home/someone/src/api/openapi.yaml:

openapi: 3.2.0
$self: https://example.com/api/openapi
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0
paths:
  /foo:
    get:
      requestBody:
        $ref: "shared/foo#/components/requestBodies/Foo"

Assume the retrieval URI for the following document is https://git.example.com/shared/blob/main/shared/foo.yaml:

openapi: 3.2.0
$self: https://example.com/api/shared/foo
info:
  title: Shared components for all APIs
  version: 1.0
components:
  requestBodies:
    Foo:
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: ../schemas/foo
  schemas:
    Foo:
      $id: https://example.com/api/schemas/foo
      properties:
        bar:
          $ref: bar
    Bar:
      $id: https://example.com/api/schemas/bar
      type: string

In this example, the retrieval URIs are irrelevant because both documents define $self.

The relative $ref in the first document is resolved against $self to produce https://example.com/api/shared/foo#/components/requestBodies/Foo. The portion of that URI before the # matches the $self of the second document, so the reference target is resolved to #/components/requestBodies/Foo in that second document.

In that document, the $ref in the Request Body Object is resolved using that document's $self as the base URI, producing https://example.com/api/schemas/foo. This matches the $id at #/components/schemas/Foo/$id so it points to that Schema Object. That Schema Object has a subschema with $ref: bar, which is resolved against the $id to produce https://example.com/api/schemas/bar, which matches the $id at #/components/schemas/Bar/$id.

To guarantee interoperability, Schema Objects containing an $id, or that are under a schema containing an $id, MUST be referenced by the nearest such $id for the non-fragment part of the reference. As the JSON Schema specification notes, using a base URI other than the nearest $id and crossing that $id with a JSON Pointer fragment is not interoperable.

Note also that it is impossible for the reference at #/components/schemas/Foo/properties/bar/$ref to reference the schema at #/components/schemas/Bar using only a JSON Pointer fragment, as the JSON Pointer would be resolved relative to https://example.com/api/schemas/foo, not to the OpenAPI document's base URI from $self.

Base URI From Encapsulating Entity

If no base URI can be determined within the content, the next location to search is any encapsulating entity (RFC3986).

This is common for Schema Objects encapsulated within an OpenAPI document. An example of an OpenAPI Object itself being encapsulated in another entity would be a multipart/related archive ([[?RFC2557]]), such as the following multipart/related; boundary="boundary-example"; type="application/openapi+yaml" document. Note that this is purely an example, and support for such multipart documents or any other format that could encapsulate an OpenAPI Object is not a requirement of this specification.

RFC2557 was written to allow sending hyperlinked sets of documents as email attachments, in which case there would not be a retrieval URI for the multipart attachment (although the format could also be used in HTTP as well).

--boundary-example
Content-Type: application/openapi+yaml
Content-Location: https://example.com/api/openapi.yaml

openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0
  externalDocs:
    url: docs.html
components:
  requestBodies:
    Foo:
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: "#/components/api/schemas/Foo"
  schemas:
    Foo:
      properties:
        bar:
          $ref: schemas/bar
--boundary-example
Content-Type: application/schema+json
Content-Location: https://example.com/api/schemas/bar

{
  "type": "string"
}
--boundary-example
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Location: https://example.com/api/docs.html

<html>
  <head>
    <title>API Documentation</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Awesome documentation goes here</p>
  </body>
</html>
--boundary-example

In this example, the URI for each part, which also serves as its base URI, comes from the part's Content-Location header as specified by RFC2557. Since the Schema Object at #/components/schemas/Foo does not contain an $id, the reference in its subschema uses the OpenAPI document's base URI, which is taken from the Content-Location header of its part within the multipart/related format. The resulting reference to https://example.com/schemas/bar matches the Content-Location header of the second part, which according to RFC2557 allows the reference target to be located within the multipart archive.

Similarly, the url field of the External Documentation Object is resolved against the base URI from Content-Location, producing https://example.com/api/docs.html which matches the Content-Location of the third part.

Base URI From the Retrieval URI

If no base URI is provided from either of the previous sources, the next source is the retrieval URI (RFC3986).

Assume this document was retrieved from https://example.com/api/openapis.yaml:

openapi: 3.2.0
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0
components:
  requestBodies:
    Foo:
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: schemas/foo

Assume this document was retrieved from https://example.com/api/schemas/foo:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "bar": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  }
}

Resolving the $ref: schemas/foo against the retrieval URI of the OpenAPI document produces https://example.com/api/schemas/foo, the retrieval URI of the JSON Schema document.

Application-Specific Default Base URI

When constructing an OpenAPI document in memory that does not have a $self, or an encapsulating entity, or a retrieval URI, applications can resolve internal (fragment-only) references by assuming a default base URI (RFC3986). While this sort of internal resolution can be performed in practice without choosing a base URI, choosing one, such as a URN with a randomly generated UUID (e.g. urn:uuid:f26cdaad-3193-4398-a838-4ecb7326c4c5) avoids the need to implement it as a special case.

Resolving Relative $self and $id

Let's re-consider the first example in this appendix, but with relative URI references for $self and $id, and retrieval URIs that support that relative usage:

Assume that the following is retrieved from https://staging.example.com/api/openapi:

openapi: 3.2.0
$self: /api/openapi
info:
  title: Example API
  version: 1.0
paths:
  /foo:
    get:
      requestBody:
        $ref: "shared/foo#/components/requestBodies/Foo"

Assume the retrieval URI for the following document is https://staging.example.com/api/shared/foo:

openapi: 3.2.0
$self: /api/shared/foo
info:
  title: Shared components for all APIs
  version: 1.0
components:
  requestBodies:
    Foo:
      content:
        application/json:
          schema:
            $ref: ../schemas/foo
  schemas:
    Foo:
      $id: /api/schemas/foo
      properties:
        bar:
          $ref: bar
    Bar:
      $id: /api/schemas/bar
      type: string

In this example, all of the $self and $id values are relative URI references consisting of an absolute path. This allows the retrieval URI to set the host (and scheme), in this case https://staging.example.com, resulting in the first document's $self being https://staging.example.com/openapi, and the second document's $self being https://staging.example.com/api/shared/foo, with $id values of https://staging.example.com/api/schemas/foo and https://staging.example.com/api/schemas/bar. Relative $self and $id values of this sort allow the same set of documents to work when deployed to other hosts, e.g. https://example.com (production) or https://localhost:8080 (local development).

Appendix G: Parsing and Resolution Guidance

Implementations MAY support complete-document parsing in any of the following ways:

• Detecting OpenAPI or JSON Schema documents using media types
• Detecting OpenAPI documents through the root openapi field
• Detecting JSON Schema documents through detecting keywords or otherwise successfully parsing the document in accordance with the JSON Schema specification

Additional mechanisms can be used to support documents with Objects other than an OpenAPI Object or a Schema Object at the root, but note that the resulting behavior is implementation-defined:

• Detecting a document containing a referenceable Object at its root based on the expected type of the reference
• Allowing users to configure the type of documents that might be loaded due to a reference to a non-root Object

Warnings Regarding Fragmentary Parsing

Implementations that parse referenced fragments of OpenAPI content without regard for the content of the rest of the containing document will miss keywords that change the meaning and behavior of the reference target. In particular, failing to take into account keywords that change the base URI introduces security risks by causing references to resolve to unintended URIs, with unpredictable results. While some implementations support this sort of parsing due to the requirements of past versions of this specification, in version 3.1 and later, the result of parsing fragments in isolation is undefined and likely to contradict the requirements of this specification.

While it is possible to structure certain OpenAPI Descriptions to ensure that they will behave correctly when references are parsed as isolated fragments, depending on this is NOT RECOMMENDED. This specification does not explicitly enumerate the conditions under which such behavior is safe and provides no guarantee for continued safety in any future versions of the OAS.

Conflicts Between Field Types and Reference Contexts

JSON or YAML objects within an OAD are interpreted as specific Objects (such as Operation Objects, Response Objects, Reference Objects, etc.) based on their context. Depending on how references are arranged, a given JSON or YAML object can be interpreted in multiple different contexts:

• As the root object of the entry document, which is always interpreted as an OpenAPI Object
• As the Object type implied by its parent Object's field within the document
• As a reference target, with the Object type matching the reference source's context

If the same JSON/YAML object is parsed multiple times and the respective contexts require it to be parsed as different Object types, the resulting behavior is implementation defined, and MAY be treated as an error if detected. An example would be referencing an empty Schema Object under #/components/schemas where a Path Item Object is expected, as an empty object is valid for both types. For maximum interoperability, it is RECOMMENDED that OpenAPI Description authors avoid such scenarios.

Guidance Regarding Implicit Connections

The following Objects and Fields involve the use of implicit connections:

Source	Target	Alternative
Security Requirement Object {name}	Security Scheme Object name under the Components Object	n/a
Discriminator Object mapping (implicit, or explicit name syntax)	Schema Object name under the Components Object	mapping (explicit URI syntax)
Operation Object tags	Tag Object name (in the OpenAPI Object's tags array)	n/a
Link Object operationId	Operation Object operationId	operationRef

An additional implicit connection involves appending the templated URL paths of the Paths Object to the appropriate Server Object's url field. This connection is unambiguous because only the entry document's Paths Object contributes URLs to the described API.

The implicit connections in the Security Requirement Object and Discriminator Object rely on the component name, which is the name of the property holding the component in the appropriately typed sub-object of the Components Object. For example, the component name of the Schema Object at #/components/schemas/Foo is Foo. The implicit connection of tags in the Operation Object uses the name field of Tag Objects, which (like the Components Object) are found under the root OpenAPI Object. This means resolving component names and tag names both depend on starting from the correct OpenAPI Object.

For resolving component and tag name connections from a referenced (non-entry) document, it is RECOMMENDED that tools resolve from the entry document, rather than the current document. Resolving component and tag name connections from a referenced (non-entry) document to the entry document as recommended under Resolving Implicit Connections allows components and Tag Objects to be defined next to the API's deployment information in the top-level array of Server Objects and treated as an interface for referenced documents to access.

For Security Requirement Objects and Discriminator Objects, it is also possible to keep the resolution within the referenced document by using the URI-reference form that these Objects offer.

There are no URI-based alternatives for the Operation Object's tags field. OAD authors are advised to use external solutions such as the OpenAPI Initiative's Overlay Specification to simulate sharing Tag Objects across multiple documents.

Implicit Connection Resolution Examples

This section shows how to retrieve an HTTP-accessible multi-document OpenAPI Description (OAD) and resolve a Security Requirement Object in the referenced (non-entry) document. The behavior for Discriminator Object non-URI mappings and for the Operation Object's tags field operate on the same principles.

First, the entry document is where parsing begins. It defines the MySecurity security scheme to be JWT-based, and it defines a Path Item as a reference to a component in another document:

GET /api/description/openapi HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Accept: application/openapi+json

"components": {
  "securitySchemes": {
    "MySecurity": {
      "type": "http",
      "scheme": "bearer",
      "bearerFormat": "JWT"
    }
  }
},
"paths": {
  "/foo": {
    "$ref": "other#/components/pathItems/Foo"
  }
}

GET /api/description/openapi HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Accept: application/openapi+yaml

components:
  securitySchemes:
    MySecurity:
      type: http
      scheme: bearer
      bearerFormat: JWT
paths:
  /foo:
    $ref: 'other#/components/pathItems/Foo'

This entry document references another document, other, without using a file extension. This gives the client the flexibility to choose an acceptable format on a resource-by-resource basis, assuming both representations are available:

GET /api/description/other HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Accept: application/openapi+json

"components": {
  "securitySchemes": {
    "MySecurity": {
      "type": "http",
      "scheme": "basic"
    }
  },
  "pathItems": {
    "Foo": {
      "get": {
        "security": [
          "MySecurity": []
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

GET /api/description/other HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Accept: application/openapi+yaml

components:
  securitySchemes:
    MySecurity:
      type: http
      scheme: basic
  pathItems:
    Foo:
      get:
        security:
          - MySecurity: []

In the other document, the referenced path item has a Security Requirement for a Security Scheme, MySecurity. The same Security Scheme exists in the original entry document. As outlined in Resolving Implicit Connections, MySecurity is resolved with an implementation-defined behavior, but the section formally recommends that tools resolve component names from the entry document. As with all implementation-defined behavior, it is important to check tool documentation to determine which behavior is supported.