dandevs's comments

We tried this out and are impressed at how customizable it is: https//blog.buildwithfern.com

SEO is important to us and right now we’re happy with the quality score we’re seeing there

Fern | https://buildwithfern.com | Founding Backend Engineer | $160k + equity | On-site NYC | Full-time

At Fern, we're creating the modern developer experience platform. We work with developer-focused companies to generate SDKs & API documentation. We're looking for a Founding Backend Engineer with 4+ years of experience to help us scale with our users. You'll join a small team (3 of us) and will be a product owner who designs, builds, and ships weekly.

Learn more at https://www.buildwithfern.com/careers Apply by emailing careers [at] buildwithfern.com with your resume/LinkedIn and why this opportunity interests you

Fern (YC W23) | Founding Engineer | New York City | $130k-$160k + 0.5-1.0% equity | Full Time | Open Source | https://buildwithfern.com

REST APIs underpin the internet but are still painful to work with. They are often untyped, unstandardized, and out-of-sync across multiple sources of truth. With Fern, we aim to bring great developer experiences to REST APIs.

Our stack is Next.js + Vercel, Express (Node.js) + FastAPI (Python), Postgres DB + Prisma ORM, and AWS CDK. We're open source: https://www.github.com/fern-api/fern

We closed a Seed this year from top-tier US investors, including Y Combinator, Abhinav Asthana (Postman CEO), Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox co-founder), and Ian McCrystal (Stripe's Head of Docs).

Learn more: https://www.buildwithfern.com/careers

Hey, co-founder of Fern (https://www.buildwithfern.com/) here.

I too am inspired by Stripe's API documentation. Specifically, I like that it:

1. shows the API reference alongside the requests and responses

2. gives code examples of how to use the client libraries (e.g. python, node.js, go, java)

3. is one, continuously scrolling page

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We built Fern Docs so that for $150/month you can get Stripe-like documentation. You can get started for free. Pay only when you need a custom domain (e.g. your-site.com/docs).

Examples of docs built with Fern:

- https://docs.joincandidhealth.com/api-reference/encounters

- https://api-docs.codecombat.com/api-reference/classrooms

Get started in less than 5 minutes: https://github.com/fern-api/docs-starter

Hey, co-founder of Fern https://www.buildwithfern.com here.

You're right that four companies are going after SDK and Docs generation. After seeing enterprises like AWS, Stripe, Twilio, Palantir, Dropbox, and many more build codegen for REST APIs in-house, it seems like a no-brainer that they'll be a solution that serves the millions of developers out there working with REST APIs.

We're seeing a new category getting created before our eyes! I could see it being defined as "Developer Experience Infrastructure", "API Management", or "API Operations". Time will tell.

Fern (YC W23) | Founding Engineer | New York City | $125k-$175k + equity | Full Time | Open Source | https://buildwithfern.com

REST APIs underpin the internet but are still painful to work with. They are often untyped, unstandardized, and out-of-sync across multiple sources of truth. With Fern, we aim to bring great developer experiences to REST APIs.

Our stack is Next.js + Vercel, Express (Node.js) + FastAPI (Python), Postgres DB + Prisma ORM, and AWS CDK.

We closed a Seed this year from top-tier US investors, including Y Combinator, Abhinav Asthana (Postman CEO), Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox co-founder), and Ian McCrystal (Stripe's Head of Docs).

Apply by emailing [email protected] Learn more: https://www.buildwithfern.com/careers

If you want to generate a Java client for testing, you can use Fern to generate one: https://github.com/fern-api/fern-java

disclaimer: I'm a maintainer of Fern.

> Why don't more companies publish either a specification for their API or an API client on a website like GitHub?

Being API-first and caring about the developer experience (DX) is still a new phenomenon. Companies like Twilio and Stripe differentiated in DX. Now there's a whole category of API-first startups like seam.co (API for IoT devices), merge.dev (unified API for 180+ integrations), and stytch.com (API for authentication) who publish API clients in major languages like Node.js, Python, Java, and Go. They also publish their OpenAPI specs in case you use a long-tail language and want to generate a client yourself.

IMO, in the next 5 years, it'll become the norm to offer clients if you have a public REST API.

I'm one of the builders of an open source project (https://buildwithfern.com/docs) to improve API codegen. We built Fern as an alternative to OpenAPI, but of course we're fully compatible with it.

The generators are open source: https://github.com/fern-api/fern

We rewrote the code generators from scratch in the language that they generate code in (e.g., the python generator is written in python). We shied away from templating - it's easier but the generated code feels less human.

Want to talk client library codegen? Join the Fern Discord: https://discord.com/invite/JkkXumPzcG

I feel like this line in the Moonwalk proposal was written for you! "Deep nesting can become unnecessarily cumbersome for reading and writing OpenAPI descriptions."

While I have many thoughts about OpenAPI's ease-of-use and readability, I'm going to focus my commentary on the proposal at hand.

1. "The primary goal of this proposal for a major new version of OpenAPI is to make it more approachable in order." -> This is a sound objective. I'm glad to see less nested structures that will improve readability. It'll make it easier to scroll the JSON/YAML and follow the logic.

2. "OpenAPI has become the defacto standard for API descriptions." -> With OpenAI's choice to pick OpenAPI as the standard for ChatGPT plugins, this is more true than ever. It's great to see that now giving names to responses will make it easier for AIs (i.e., ChatGPT, Copilot) to call an API more accurately.

3. No mention of improving the quality of codegen (e.g., client libs, server stubs). Surprised that Moonwalk is silent on this topic.

Interesting. What language are you writing? Is there a specific Resource you use: https://apidocs.theforeman.org/foreman/latest/apidoc/v2.html

Howdy swyx. Long-time follower, first time writer. Following this thread! I have a hunch we'll see improvements to the Temporal workshops (like the Go one posted today).