Having an OpenAPI Specification (OAS) is a useful document for numerous reasons. The most common being the ease of generating API reference documentation, but it overshadows some additional benefits that you can gain from adopting the OpenAPI Specification. This talk will delve into the hidden value of the OpenAPI Specification, and how you can employ it to your advantage. Some of the ideas that we will explore are:

• What are the lesser known benefits of using OAS to build API docs
• What is a single source of truth in an API
• How OAS gives us a way to breakdown APIs and helps us improve communication around HTTP
• How design-first APIs, mocking, and testing with OAS can create better developer experiences
• How OAS creates a structured document for collaboration between teams and other ways OAS can increase collaboration throughout the API design process
• What ways OAS can bring docs writers into the API design process sooner

Attendees will leave the talk having a better grasp of how the OpenAPI Specifications can fit into their workflow and how they can leverage it to improve their API design and documentation processes.