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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 build and manage REST APIs. Through Fusio you can quickly build a state-of-the-art API, set up a developer portal and monetize your API.

Fusio supports different ways to setup your API:

  • Use Fusio as API Gateway to proxy calls to a remote API
  • Use Fusio to automatically create an API from different sources i.e. a database
  • Use Fusio to implement custom business logic via an action or worker

This page will explain the first steps on how to proxy a route to an internal API. We create a route 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 must 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 a route​

Lastly, we need to create a route which then invokes our action. A route contains some 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. Route​

The route entity specifies a path at your API i.e. if you create a route /hello/world then you can invoke this route at your API. The route invokes a specific action which executes the business logic of your API. Besides this the route describes through a schema how the request and response data of your endpoint is designed. Fusio then also uses those schemas to validate request data and to automatically generate an 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.