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Getting started

To get started you first need a running installation of Fusio. If you have not already installed Fusio please take a look at the installation page. Fusio is an open source API management platform which helps to create innovative API solutions. Through Fusio you can quickly build a state-of-the-art API, set up a developer portal and monetize your API.

Fusio can help you with the following use cases:

  • API Product
    Fusio helps you to create a great API product, besides building an API it provides a developer portal where developers can register and a way to monetize your API
  • API Gateway
    Fusio can be used as gateway to your internal API and microservices. It handles all common features like Authorization, Rate-Limiting and Schema-Validation
  • SPA Backend
    Fusio can be used as backend to build SPAs using popular Javascript-Frameworks like i.e. Angular, React or Vue. It provides a powerful code generator which can automatically generate an SDK for your API
  • API Builder
    Fusio helps to automatically generate APIs based on different data sources i.e. it is possible to generate a complete REST API based on a database or also the file system.
  • API Framework
    For more complex use cases you can use Fusio also as framework to build complete APIs from scratch. This means you build custom actions where you can use the wide PHP ecosystem to solve your task.

This page will explain the first steps on how to proxy an operation to an internal API. We create an operation at the backend which executes a specific action, a schema which describes the payload and an action which proxies to a remote API.

Creating an action​

To start we create an action. An action is a small function (i.e. like a serverless lambda function) which receives a HTTP request and produces a response. Fusio already contains many prebuilt actions which can solve many tasks, such as, proxy an HTTP request to a remote API or build an API based on a database table. In this example we simply create an action which proxies a remote API:

create_action

Creating a schema​

Next we create a schema to describe the response of our action. This step is optional, but creating a schema is highly recommended. The schema is then the contract to your API consumers; how the request and response format is designed. Internally Fusio uses TypeSchema to describe the JSON format. Through a schema, Fusio can then automatically create an OpenAPI specification or generate a client SDK.

create_schema

Creating an operation​

Lastly, we need to create an operation which then invokes our action. An operation contains meta information like a description, the request and response schemas, and which action should be invoked. In our example we simply select the action and the schema which we have created.

create_schema

API Response​

Now we can call the /me endpoint at our API which then proxies the HTTP request to our remote API and returns the response.

api_response

Conclusion​

This was a first basic example on how to create a simple API endpoint with Fusio. Fusio provides then out of the box many features to build a great API product. We try to provide all features of a modern API solution which you also find at most popular developer portals. Since Fusio can solve many use cases, we have structured our documentation into three parts:

Architecture overview​

In this chapter we provide a first overview about the architecture, the following diagram shows the basic entities of Fusio:

architecture

1. Operation​

An operation provides a way to invoke an action which executes the business logic of your API, it is assigned to a specific HTTP method and path i.e. GET /hello/world. Besides this the operation describes through a schema how the parameters, incoming and outgoing data of your endpoint is designed. Fusio then also uses those schemas to validate request data and to automatically generate an OpenAPI specification or client SDK.

2. Action​

The action contains the actual business logic of your API i.e. to proxy a request to a remote API or directly selects data from a database table. You can use either one of our existing actions to solve your problem or you can also easily build your own action.

3. Schema​

The schema simply describes a JSON payload. We use a schema to describe i.e. request/response data of a route or also event payloads which are dispatched by the system. Every schema is based on TypeSchema which we also use to generate a client SDK or other specifications like OpenAPI.

4. Event​

An event gets dispatched by an action in your API, it can be used to create an async workflow where external parties are notified in case a specific event occurred at your API. I.e. you could create an event "contract_created" and dispatch this event everytime a contract was created at your API, then external users can register a webhook and Fusio will invoke this webhook once a contract was created. You can describe the payload of your event also by a schema.

5. Cronjob​

A cronjob provides a way to invoke an action at a specific interval. Normally an action is invoked by a route but you can use a cronjob to invoke your action periodically.

6. Connection​

A connection provides access to a remote service. I.e. we have a SQL connection which works with a SQL database or a HTTP connection which works with a remote HTTP server. One key concept is that a connection always uses an external library to connect to the remote service i.e for the SQL connection we use the doctrine/dbal library and for the HTTP connection we use guzzlehttp/guzzle. A connection returns always a fully configured client which you can use in your action. A remote service can be also an external API i.e. we provide connections to Stripe or also AWS which works with the official SDK.