REST API

What This Skill Does

The REST API skill for OpenClaw acts as an expert architect and lead engineer for your backend services. It mandates a contract-first approach to API development, ensuring that OpenAPI specifications define your system behavior before a single line of application code is written. By managing a structured workspace in ~/rest-api/, the skill tracks technical decisions (ADRs), API schemas, testing strategies, and operational runbooks. It enforces industry-standard practices like resource-based routing, strict security headers, and idempotent HTTP method handling to guarantee your APIs are production-ready and scalable.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your environment, run the following command in your OpenClaw terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/ivangdavila/rest-api. Once installed, the skill will initialize the workspace structure upon first invocation. Use setup.md to configure your initial environment variables and memory preferences.

Use Cases

This skill is perfect for developers needing to build new microservices, refactor existing legacy endpoints into RESTful designs, or secure public-facing APIs. It is particularly effective for teams requiring standardized documentation and robust error handling across multiple distributed services. You can use it to design schemas, write integration tests, or prepare complex release checklists for production deployments.

Example Prompts

1. "I need to design a new user profile API. Can you help me write the OpenAPI contract for GET /users/{id} and PATCH /users/{id} with full validation rules?"
2. "We are seeing high latency on our order processing endpoint. Check the operations/ folder and suggest a testing strategy to identify the bottleneck."
3. "Help me create a migration strategy for changing the authentication provider in my current project. Ensure we keep backward compatibility for existing clients."

Tips & Limitations

• Start with the Contract: Always define your endpoints in contracts/ first. Attempting to generate code before finalizing the contract often leads to drift and technical debt.
• Use ADRs: Keep your decisions/ folder updated with architectural choices to ensure team alignment and clear documentation for future maintenance.
• Security: Do not use this skill to bypass existing auth protocols; instead, use it to implement hardened JWT validation or OAuth2 flows.
• Limitations: This skill focuses on architecture and design; it does not replace the actual database or server hosting infrastructure. It acts as an orchestrator to ensure your implementations follow best practices.