Show HN: Insomnia Designer – Open-source collaborative editor for API design

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TL;DR: Insomnia Designer a new open-source desktop application that
provides a modern workflow for teams to design and collaborate on APIs.

If you’re a software developer, there’s a good chance you interact with APIs almost every day.
Since 2015, it’s been Insomnia’s goal to help make this process as simple and enjoyable as
possible. Fast-forward to today and Insomnia is the leading open-source tool for interacting
with REST and GraphQL APIs.

Interaction is only half the story, however, which is why we’re pleased to announce
Insomnia Designer
—a new application that focuses on improving the
API design workflow that so many companies struggle with.

Designer builds on top of the existing Insomnia (now Insomnia Core) codebase to facilitate a
“spec-first development” workflow that allows you to design and edit OpenApi documents in one
place, share them across your organization using Git, and interact with them using the Insomnia
features you already know and love 💜

Specifications Home

This first release contains a core set of features to edit and share OpenAPI specifications, with
the intention of involving the community as soon as possible to help shape drive the app in the
right direction. So, we encourage you to take it for a spin and submit any and all feedback to
the Insomnia GitHub Repo, or join our
Community Slack.

Feature Highlight

  • Edit OpenAPI specifications
  • Preview specs using Swagger UI
  • Git integration
  • Linting and error checking
  • High-level filterable view of all documents
  • Debug and explore APIs (like Insomnia Core)
  • Extend with Plugins
  • Kong integration via kong-bundle Plugin

    • Deploy to Kong Portal
    • Generate Kong Declarative Config
    • Generate Kong for Kubernetes Config

Common Questions

Who is it for? 🤗

Designer is for developers and teams designing and creating APIs. Today, it’s not
uncommon for organizations to manage hundreds of APIs that span across teams and departments.
Our plan is to make Designer into a platform developers can use to collaboratively design,
review, test API specifications during the API development process.

Where can I download it? 🛒

Designer is a free and open-source desktop application that can be installed on Mac, Windows, or
Linux. Visit the Download page to get started.

Why open source? 💜

Insomnia Core would not be where it is today without the help of the open-source community. We’re
using the same strategy for Designer in order to help make it as robust, full-featured, and
adaptable as possible. Visit the GitHub Repository to learn
more.

Why a separate app? 📦

Insomnia is an extremely powerful tool, but most users love it for how simple and easy it is to
use. In order to maintain this core tenant, Designer needs to be simple too, which is why
we’re releasing Insomnia Designer as a separate application, focused specifically on API design.

Does it support Insomnia Plus/Team accounts? 💼

Designer does not currently integrate with existing Insomnia Plus/Team accounts, but we plan on
adding support in the future.

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