Features

The API Connect Developer Toolkit provides a visual designer and a set of command-line tools for augmenting the local API create experience and to make it easy for developers to interact with API Connect clouds in Bluemix and on premises.

The toolkit includes the following features:

• API Designer: A visual tool for creating, testing, and publishing APIs and applications.

• API Explorer: A visual tool for exploring and testing APIs.

• Loopback: A highly-extensible, open-source Node.js framework for quickly creating dynamic end-to-end REST APIs.

• Micro Gateway: A gateway to support unit testing of policies to secure and enforce APIs as part of the local development experience.

• The apic CLI: A set of commands to augment the local API create experience and for publishing APIs and applications to API Connect clouds in Bluemix and on premises.

Installation

$ npm install -g apiconnect

Preqrequisites:

• Node.js version 0.12.0 or version 4.x.
• On Windows, there are some additional prerequisites; see Installing the toolkit.

Getting Started

1. Get help on the apic command set:

   $ apic -h

2. Create a LoopBack application (take the defaults selecting hello-world which installs a sample application):

   $ apic loopback --name notes

3. Change into the LoopBack application directory:

   $ cd notes

4. Start the services for the local unit test environment:

   $ apic start

5. Use curl to invoke the sample application to create a note and then list the notes. Scroll to the right to see the full command :

   curl -k -X POST https://localhost:4002/api/Notes -H 'X-IBM-Client-Id: default' -H 'X-IBM-Client-Secret: SECRET' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -H 'Accept: application/json' -d '{ "title": "This is my first note" }' -v
   curl -k https://localhost:4002/api/Notes -H 'X-IBM-Client-Id: default' -H 'X-IBM-Client-Secret: SECRET'

6. Start the API Designer and explore the application:

   $ apic edit

Additional Resources

• API Connect documentation
• Loopback.io