Our REST pipeline creates autogenerated REST API documentation for docs.github.com/rest from the OpenAPI stored in the open-source repository github/rest-api-description.

The pipeline is used to generate data that is used by the docs.github.com site when deployed locally, in preview environments, or in production.

A workflow is used to trigger the automation of the REST documentation. The workflow runs automatically on a schedule. The workflow that triggers the REST pipeline also triggers other automation pipelines that use the OpenAPI as the source data:

• GitHub Apps
• REST
• Webhooks

The workflow automatically creates a pull request with the changes (for all three pipelines) and the label github-openapi-bot. The workflow runs the npm run sync-rest script, which creates, deletes, or updates Markdown files in the content/rest directory.

You can manually run the workflow leaving the source branch input parameter with the default value of main. Running the workflow creates a new pull request in the github/docs-internal repo with the changes.

If there is a pull request that is still unmerged in github/rest-api-description that needs to be propagated to the docs.github.com site, manually run the workflow and provide the branch name of the pull request in the github/rest-api-description repo that you would like to get the changes from. This will create a new pull request in the github/docs-internal repo with the changes.

You will need to first wait for the OpenAPI to be merged into github/rest-api-description.

Then, you can manually sync the data used by the REST, Webhooks, and GitHub App pipelines before the scheduled daily run here. Use the default input options.

To run the REST pipeline locally:

1. Clone the github/rest-api-description repository inside your local docs-internal repository.
2. Set a GITHUB_TOKEN in your .env with (classic) repo scopes & enable SSO for the github org.
3. Run npm run sync-rest -- -s rest-api-description -o rest. Note, by default -o rest is specified, so you can omit it.

• src/github-apps/api - API endpoints used by source code in src/rest.
• src/github-apps/components - The React source code.
• src/rest/data - The automatically generated data files created by running this pipeline.
• src/rest/lib - The source code used in production for the automated documentation generated by the REST pipeline and configuration files edited by content and engineering team members.
  • src/rest/lib/config.json - A configuration file used to specify metadata about the REST pipeline.
• src/rest/scripts - The scripts and source code used run the REST pipeline, which updates the src/rest/data directory.
  • src/rest/scripts/update-files.ts - The entrypoint script that runs the REST pipeline.
• src/rest/tests - The tests used to verify the REST pipeline.

The src/rest/lib/config.json file contain metadata used by the content and engineering team to configure the REST pipeline. The file contains the following properties:

• api-versions - A list of the calendar-date API versions that are available for each version.
• versionMapping - A mapping of the API version name used in the OpenAPI schema in github/rest-api-description to the version short name used in the github/docs-internal repo.
• frontmatterDefaults - A list of default frontmatter values to append to each Markdown file in content/rest.
• targetDirectory - The directory in content where the Markdown files that correspond to this pipeline are located.
• indexOrder - The order of the children in the index.md file in the targetDirectory. The startsWith keyword lists the directories under targetDirectory that should be listed first. All other automatically created directories are appended to this list.
• sha - The SHA of the commit in github/rest-api-description that was used to generate the data in src/rest/data and Markdown files in content/rest. This value is automatically updated when the pipeline runs.

The content writers can manually update parts of the autogenerated Markdown files in content/rest. When new Markdown files are added they will get all of the frontmatter properties defined in the defaultFrontmatter property in src/rest/lib/config.js.

When a new Markdown file is created, a writer can manually change any of the frontmatter except versions. The pipeline will overwrite the versions property on subsequent runs, but will not modify any other frontmatter properties.

Writers can also add an introduction paragraph above the following Markdown comment:

<!-- Content after this section is automatically generated -->

Slack: #docs-engineering Repo: github/docs-engineering

If you have a question about the REST pipeline, you can ask in the #docs-engineering Slack channel. If you notice a problem with the REST pipeline, you can open an issue in the github/docs-engineering repository.