REST Builder is Liferay DXP’s tool to build REST and GraphQL APIs. It’s based on OpenAPI, following an API-first approach.
Using REST Builder takes only three steps:
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Write the OpenAPI profile.
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Use REST builder to generate the scaffolding.
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Fill out the generated classes with your logic.
A good overview of the process is detailed here.
We’ll see each step in detail but first, let’s talk about why we want to use REST Builder.
Why we should use REST Builder
There are several reasons to prefer REST Builder over rolling our own JAX-RS services. Some of them are the following:
- Development speed: you avoid writing JAX-RS annotations, converters, adding support for multipart or layers to organize your code. Everything is generated.
- API scaffolding: pagination, filtering, searching, JSON writers, XML generation, even unit, and integration tests are generated.
- GraphQL support out of the box: write your REST API and get a GraphQL endpoint for free.
- Integration with Liferay’s authentication pipelines: Basic, OAuth, Cookie, CORS handling. You don’t have to search manually for the user or the company; everything is already there.
- JSON & XML support: APIs return whichever format the consumer prefers.
- Consistency: all APIs follow the same rules and conventions, enforced by REST builder.