Operations

Operation verb

Default behavior:

• If @post operation has a request body
• @get otherwise

Configure:

You can use one of the verb decorators: @get, @put, etc.

Route

An operation route can be specified using the @route decorator.

@route("/pets") op list(): Pet[];

Route path parameters are declared using {}. Providing @path on the model property with the matching name is optional.

@route("/pets/{petId}") op get(petId: string): Pet;
// or explicit @path
@route("/pets/{petId}") op get(@path petId: string): Pet;

Route can be specified on a parent namespace or interface. In that case all the operations, interfaces and namespaces underneath will be prefixed with it.

@route("/store")
namespace PetStore {
  op hello(): void; // `/store`
  @route("ping") op ping(): void; // `/store/ping`

  @route("/pets")
  interface Pets {
    list(): Pet[]; // `/store/pets`
    @route("{petId}") read(petId: string): Pet; // `/store/pets/{petId}`
  }
}

Path and query parameters

Model properties and parameters which should be passed as path and query parameters use the @path and @query parameters respectively. Let’s modify our list operation to support pagination, and add a read operation to our Pets resource:

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): Pet[];
  op read(@path petId: int32): Pet;
}

Path parameters are appended to the URL unless a substitution with that parameter name exists on the resource path. For example, we might define a sub-resource using the following TypeSpec. Note how the path parameter for our sub-resource’s list operation corresponds to the substitution in the URL.

@route("/pets/{petId}/toys")
namespace PetToys {
  op list(@path petId: int32): Toy[];
}

Request & response bodies

Request and response bodies can be declared explicitly using the @body decorator. Let’s add an endpoint to create a pet. Let’s also use this decorator for the responses, although this doesn’t change anything about the API.

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): {
    @body pets: Pet[];
  };
  op read(@path petId: int32): {
    @body pet: Pet;
  };
  @post
  op create(@body pet: Pet): {};
}

Note that in the absence of explicit @body:

1. The set of parameters that are not marked @header, @query, or @path form the request body.
2. The set of properties of the return model that are not marked @header or @statusCode form the response body.
3. If the return type is not a model, then it defines the response body.

This is how we were able to return Pet and Pet[] bodies without using @body for list and read. We can actually write create in the same terse style by spreading the Pet object into the parameter list like this:

See also metadata for more advanced details.

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  @post
  op create(...Pet): {};
}

Headers

Model properties and parameters that should be passed in a header use the @header decorator. The decorator takes the header name as a parameter. If a header name is not provided, it is inferred from the property or parameter name. Let’s add etag support to our pet store’s read operation.

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): {
    @body pets: Pet[];
  };
  op read(@path petId: int32, @header ifMatch?: string): {
    @header eTag: string;
    @body pet: Pet;
  };
  @post
  op create(@body pet: Pet): {};
}

Status codes

Default behavior:

• 4xx,5xx if response is marked with @error
• 200 otherwise

Configure:

Use the @statusCode decorator on a property to declare a status code for a response. Generally, setting this to just int32 isn’t particularly useful. Instead, use number literal types to create a discriminated union of response types. Let’s add status codes to our responses, and add a 404 response to our read endpoint.

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  @error
  model Error {
    code: string;
  }

  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): {
    @body pets: Pet[]; // statusCode: 200 Implicit
  };
  op read(@path petId: int32, @header ifMatch?: string): {
    @statusCode statusCode: 200;
    @header eTag: string;
    @body pet: Pet;
  } | {
    @statusCode statusCode: 404;
  };
  op create(@body pet: Pet): {
    @statusCode statusCode: 204;
  } | Error; //statusCode: 4xx,5xx as Error use `@error` decorator
}

Content type

See the documentation of Content-Types.

Built-in response shapes

Since status codes are so common for REST APIs, TypeSpec comes with some built-in types for common status codes so you don’t need to declare status codes so frequently.

There is also a Body<T> type, which can be used as a shorthand for { @body body: T } when an explicit body is required.

Lets update our sample one last time to use these built-in types:

model ETag {
  @header eTag: string;
}
@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): OkResponse & Body<Pet[]>;
  op read(@path petId: int32, @header ifMatch?: string): (OkResponse &
    Body<Pet> &
    ETag) | NotFoundResponse;
  @post
  op create(...Pet): NoContentResponse;
}

Note that the default status code is 200 for non-empty bodies and 204 for empty bodies. Similarly, explicit Body<T> is not required when T is known to be a model. So the following terser form is equivalent:

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): Pet[];
  op read(@path petId: int32, @header ifMatch?: string): (Pet & ETag) | NotFoundResponse;
  @post
  op create(...Pet): {};
}

Finally, another common style is to make helper response types that are shared across a larger service definition. In this style, you can be entirely explicit while also keeping operation definitions concise.

For example, we could write :

model ListResponse<T> {
  ...OkResponse;
  ...Body<T[]>;
}

model ReadSuccessResponse<T> {
  ...OkResponse;
  ...ETag;
  ...Body<T>;
}

alias ReadResponse<T> = ReadSuccessResponse<T> | NotFoundResponse;

model CreateResponse {
  ...NoContentResponse;
}

@route("/pets")
namespace Pets {
  op list(@query skip: int32, @query top: int32): ListResponse<Pet>;
  op read(@path petId: int32, @header ifMatch?: string): ReadResponse<Pet>;
  @post
  op create(...Pet): CreateResponse;
}

Handling files

@typespec/http provides a special model TypeSpec.Http.File for handling file uploads and downloads in HTTP operations. When working with files, emitters need to implement special handling due to their binary nature.

Basic File Handling

When the model Http.File (or any model that extends Http.File) is the exact body of an HTTP request, emitters must treat this model with special care:

• The contentType property should be used as the value for the Content-Type header in requests and vice-versa for responses.
• The filename property should be used in the Content-Disposition header in responses and vice-versa for multipart requests (filename cannot be sent in a non-multipart HTTP request because Content-Disposition is only valid for responses and multipart requests).
• The file content should be treated as the raw body of the request/response without any additional parsing.

See isHttpFile for a helper that emitters/libraries can use to detect instances of Http.File.

Examples

Uploading and downloading files

// Uploading and downloading
@route("/files")
interface Files {
  @post
  upload(@body file: Http.File): {
    @statusCode statusCode: 201;
  };

  download(@path fileId: string): Http.File;
}

Custom file types

If you want to declare specific types of files that are accepted, but still treated as binary files, declare the content types by extending the Http.File model and overriding the contentType field.

// Custom file type for images
model ImageFile extends Http.File {
  contentType: "image/jpeg" | "image/png" | "image/gif";
}

@route("/images")
interface Images {
  @post
  upload(@body image: ImageFile): {
    @statusCode statusCode: 201;
  };

  download(@path imageId: string): ImageFile;
}

Automatic visibility

The @typespec/rest library understands Lifecycle Visibility and provides functionality for emitters to apply visibility transforms based on whether a model represents a request or response and on HTTP method usage as detailed in the table below.

See handling visibility and metadata for details on how to incorporate this information into an emitter implementation.

Modifier	Visible in
Lifecycle.Read	Any response
Lifecycle.Query	GET or HEAD request
Lifecycle.Create	POST or PUT request
Lifecycle.Update	PATCH or PUT request
Lifecycle.Delete	DELETE request

This allows a single logical TypeSpec model to be used as in the following example:

model User {
  name: string;
  @visibility(Lifecycle.Read) id: string;
  @visibility(Lifecycle.Create) password: string;
}

@route("/users")
interface Users {
  @post create(@path id: string, ...User): User;
  @get get(@path id: string): User;
}

There is a single logical user entity represented by the single TypeSpec type User, but the HTTP payload for this entity varies based on context. When returned in a response, the id property is included, but when sent in a request, it is not. Similarly, the password property is only included in create requests, but not present in responses.

The OpenAPI v3 emitter will apply these visibilities automatically, without explicit use of @withVisibility, and it will generate separate schemas suffixed by visibility when necessary. @visibility(Lifecycle.Read) can be expressed in OpenAPI without generating additional schema by specifying readOnly: true and the OpenAPI v3 emitter will leverage this a an optimization, but other visibilities will generate additional schemas. For example, @visibility(Lifecycle.Create) applied to a model property of a type named Widget will generate a WidgetCreate schema.

Another emitter such as one generating client code can see and preserve a single logical type and deal with these HTTP payload differences by means other than type proliferation.

Modeling with logical entities rather than HTTP-specific shapes also keeps the TypeSpec spec decoupled from HTTP and REST and can allow the same spec to be used with multiple protocols.

Metadata

The properties that designate content for the HTTP envelope (@header, @path, @query, @statusCode) rather than the content in an HTTP payload are often called “metadata”.

Metadata is determined to be applicable or inapplicable based on the context that it is used:

Context	Applicability
@query	request only
@path	request only
@statusCode	response only
@header	request or response

Additionally metadata that appears in an array element type always inapplicable.

When metadata is deemed “inapplicable”, for example, if a @path property is seen in a response, it becomes part of the payload instead unless the @includeInapplicableMetadataInPayload decorator is used and given a value of false.

The handling of metadata applicability furthers the goal of keeping a single logical model in TypeSpec. For example, this defines a logical User entity that has a name, ID and password, but further annotates that the ID is sent in the HTTP path and the HTTP body in responses. Also, using automatic visibility as before, we further indicate that the password is only present in create requests.

model User {
  name: string;
  @path id: string;
  @visibility(Lifecycle.Create) password: string;
}

Then, we can write operations in terms of the logical entity:

@route("/users")
interface Users {
  @post create(...User): User;
}

Abstractly, this expresses that a create operation that takes and returns a user. But concretely, at the HTTP protocol level, a create request and response look like this:

POST /Users/TypeSpecFan42 HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "name": "TypeSpec Fan",
  "password": "Y0uW1llN3v3rGu3ss!"
}

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
{
  name: "TypeSpec Fan",
  id: "TypeSpecFan42
}

Visibility vs. Metadata applicability

Metadata properties are filtered based on visibility as described above. This is done independently before applicability is considered. If a a metadata property is not visible then it is neither part of the envelope nor the HTTP payload, irrespective of its applicability.

Nested metadata

Metadata properties are not required to be top-level. They can also be nested deeper in a parameter or response model type. For example:

model Thing {
  headers: {
    @header example: string;
  };
  name: string;
}

Note that nesting in this sense does not require the use of anonymous models. This is equivalent:

model Thing {
  headers: Headers;
  name: string;
}
model Headers {
  @header example: string;
}

In the event that this nesting introduces duplication, then the least nested property with a given name is preferred and the duplicate metadata properties are ignored.

model Thing {
  headers: {
    @header example: string; // preferred
    more: {
      @header example: string; // ignored
    };
  };
}

Emitter resources

See Handling metadata and visibility in emitters for REST API for information on how to handle metadata applicability and automatic visibility in a custom emitter.