How can you use Shopify to document APIs for e-commerce platforms?

3 How to document APIs with Shopify?

To document APIs with Shopify, you need to follow three main steps: define, write, and publish. Let's look at each step in more detail.

4 Define your API

Before you start writing your documentation, you need to define your API. This means deciding what your API does, what data it handles, what methods it supports, and what parameters it accepts. You also need to consider the security, authentication, and error handling aspects of your API. You can use tools such as Swagger or OpenAPI to create a specification for your API that describes its structure and behavior in a standard format.

5 Write your documentation

Once you have defined your API, you can start writing your documentation. Your documentation should explain the purpose, features, and usage of your API in a clear and concise way. You should include the following sections in your documentation: overview, authentication, endpoints, parameters, responses, errors, examples, and changelog. You should also use a consistent and readable format for your documentation, such as Markdown or HTML. You can use tools such as Slate or Docusaurus to generate and style your documentation from your source files.

6 Publish your documentation

The final step is to publish your documentation so that other developers and users can access it. You can publish your documentation through Shopify's developer portal, where you can create a custom app or a public app for your API. A custom app is a private app that only works for one store, while a public app is a public app that can be installed by any store. You can also publish your documentation on your own website or a third-party platform, such as GitHub Pages or Read the Docs. You should make sure that your documentation is up to date, accurate, and easy to find and navigate.