Back in March 2022, you heard the first official words around AsyncAPI 3.0. Since then, a lot of people have been working diligently across many expertise to bring it to life. And with its current state, it's finally time to give an update on the progress.
Show Me the Money!
We are not going to give any lengthy description of features, fixes, and changes. Instead, I will just show you the money as a teaser. ๐
Below is an AsyncAPI v3 document that defines how you, a public application, can interact with my Smartylighting Streetlights system, where you can turn on a specific streetlight through WebSocket and get real-time information about environmental lighting conditions through Kafka.
See how many features you can spot just from this example. Some changes are absent in the example, but I tried to cramp as many changes into it as possible. Below the example is a short list of changes you'll be able to fact-check your guess with.
1asyncapi: "3.0.0"
2info:
3 title: Smartylighting Streetlights public API
4 version: "1.0.0"
5 description: |
6 The Smartylighting Streetlights public API allows you to remotely manage the city lights through Kafka and WebSocket.
7
8 ### Check out its awesome features:
9
10 * Turn a specific streetlight on ๐
11 * Receive real-time information about environmental lighting conditions ๐
12 license:
13 name: Apache 2.0
14 url: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
15
16servers:
17 kafka:
18 host: test.mykafkacluster.org:8092
19 protocol: kafka-secure
20 description: Test Kafka broker
21 security:
22 - $ref: '#/components/securitySchemes/saslScram'
23 websocket:
24 host: test.websocket.org:1999
25 protocol: ws
26 description: Test WebSocket server
27
28defaultContentType: application/json
29
30channels:
31 turnStreetlightOnChannel:
32 address: "/"
33 messages:
34 turnOn:
35 $ref: "#/components/messages/turnOn"
36 servers:
37 - $ref: "#/servers/websocket"
38
39 turnStreetlightOnReplyChannel:
40 address: "/"
41 messages:
42 turnOnReply:
43 $ref: "#/components/messages/turnOnReply"
44 servers:
45 - $ref: "#/servers/websocket"
46
47 lightMeasured:
48 description: The topic on which measured values may be produced and consumed.
49 address: "smartylighting.streetlights.1.0.event.{streetlightId}.lighting.measured"
50 parameters:
51 streetlightId:
52 $ref: "#/components/parameters/streetlightId"
53 messages:
54 lightMeasured:
55 $ref: "#/components/messages/lightMeasured"
56 servers:
57 - $ref: "#/servers/kafka"
58
59operations:
60 turnOn:
61 action: send
62 operationId: turnOn
63 channel:
64 $ref: "#/channels/turnStreetlightOnChannel"
65 reply:
66 channel:
67 $ref: "#/channels/turnStreetlightOnReplyChannel"
68
69 lightMeasured:
70 action: receive
71 summary: Inform about environmental lighting conditions of a particular streetlight.
72 operationId: receiveLightMeasurement
73 channel:
74 $ref: "#/channels/lightMeasured"
75 traits:
76 - $ref: "#/components/operationTraits/kafka"
77
78components:
79 messages:
80 turnOn:
81 name: turnOn
82 title: Turn on
83 summary: Command a particular streetlight to turn the lights on.
84 payload:
85 $ref: "#/components/schemas/turnOnPayload"
86
87 turnOnReply:
88 name: turnOnReply
89 title: Turn on reply
90 summary: Reply from turning on the lights
91 payload:
92 $ref: "#/components/schemas/turnOnReplyPayload"
93
94 lightMeasured:
95 name: lightMeasured
96 title: Light measured
97 summary: Inform about environmental lighting conditions of a particular streetlight.
98 contentType: application/json
99 traits:
100 - $ref: "#/components/messageTraits/commonHeaders"
101 payload:
102 $ref: "#/components/schemas/lightMeasuredPayload"
103
104 schemas:
105 turnOnPayload:
106 type: object
107 properties:
108 streetlightId:
109 description: The ID of the streetlight.
110 type: string
111 sentAt:
112 type: string
113 format: date-time
114 description: Date and time when the request was sent
115
116 turnOnReplyPayload:
117 type: object
118 properties:
119 turnedOnTimestamp:
120 type: string
121 format: date-time
122 description: Date and time when the light was actually turned on.
123
124 lightMeasuredPayload:
125 schemaFormat: "application/vnd.apache.avro;version=1.9.0"
126 schema:
127 type: record
128 name: User
129 namespace: com.company
130 doc: User information
131 fields:
132 - name: lumens
133 type: int
134 - name: sentAt
135 type: timestamp_ms
136
137 securitySchemes:
138 saslScram:
139 type: scramSha256
140 description: Provide your username and password for SASL/SCRAM authentication
141
142 parameters:
143 streetlightId:
144 description: The ID of the streetlight.
145
146 messageTraits:
147 commonHeaders:
148 headers:
149 type: object
150 properties:
151 my-app-header:
152 type: integer
153 minimum: 0
154 maximum: 100
155
156 operationTraits:
157 kafka:
158 bindings:
159 kafka:
160 clientId: public
As of the pre-release v3.0.0-next-major-spec.12
, this is a valid AsyncAPI document. You can always find the most recent pre-release version here: https://www.asyncapi.com/docs/reference.
All the changes in 3.0 up until now are the following:
- Request/reply pattern.
- Introduce the new Channel Object, detached from operations.
- Introduce the new Operation object, detached from channels.
- Channels are no longer identified with address/topic/path.
- Optional channels.
- Schemas and schema formats are now naturally bound.
- Cleaned up the root object.
- Added additional meta fields for Server Object, Channel Object, Operation Object, and Operation Trait Object.
- External Documentation Object and Tag Object can now be reused and referenced.
- Unified referencing behavior.
In due time we will give you a complete rundown about all the changes in 3.0 and extended documentation that explains the features in more in-depth, including a migration guide and release blog post.
The Remaining Effort
The specification work is nearly done; only one change is still being discussed which is changing traits behavior to an inheritance that can be overwritten.
However, at AsyncAPI, a specification is nothing without documentation and tools, which is why the majority of the remaining effort resolves just that.
For documentation, you have probably noticed that since the first release of 2.0, we now have concepts, tutorials, and guides. Some of those docs will be updated due to 3.0.
Regarding tooling, it's impossible to give you a clear overview of what exactly will support 3.0 right out the gate because there are many different code owners and contributors with individual priorities. So if you want a tool to support 3.0 right out the gate, please do head over to the issue and voice the need, add a ๐, write a comment, or maybe even contribute the needed changes!
- AsyncAPI CLI
- AsyncAPI asyncapi-react
- AsyncAPI generator
- AsyncAPI studio
- AsyncAPI converter-js
- AsyncAPI vs-asyncapi-preview
- AsyncAPI bundler
- AsyncAPI diff
- AsyncAPI cupid
- AsyncAPI glee
- AsyncAPI server-api
- AsyncAPI modelina
- AsyncAPI dotnet-nats-template
- AsyncAPI ts-nats-template
- AsyncAPI python-paho-template
- AsyncAPI nodejs-ws-template
- AsyncAPI java-template
- AsyncAPI java-spring-cloud-stream-template
- AsyncAPI go-watermill-template
- AsyncAPI java-spring-template
- AsyncAPI markdown-template
- AsyncAPI html-template
The only tools we can say for sure that will support 3.0 right out the gate are the JS parser and the specification JSON Schema documents because they need to be updated for any specification change to be accepted ๐
Currently, we are using completed tasks as the release date for 3.0. Once all tasks are completed, we'll release 3.0.
Release Date
That leaves the big question... When is the release then?
Honestly, we tried to stick with a release date, and more specifically, we thought the July release period (yes, next month). However as you can probably guess with the remaining work, that's most likely not going to happen. As we are learning, major changes take time, and schedules in open source are, hard, to say the least. ๐
While all the specification changes are most likely done by July, my best guess, right now, is for everything to be released in September.
The more people help out, the faster it will get done. ๐
The next time you will hear from me will be the release blog post for 3.0. ๐
Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash