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Getting Started

Welcome!

This guide will help you setup your RAW account and create your first API. Follow these simple steps:

  1. Create a RAW account
  2. Fork a 'Hello World' repository
  3. Authorize RAW to read your repository
  4. Test your new Hello World API!

Pre-requisite: You will need to have a GitHub account to use RAW.

1. Create a RAW account​

To create an account, click here to register.

After you register, you will be redirected to a web page asking you to install VS Code Extension. VS Code is the easiest and safest way to develop in RAW but not necessary for this tutorial. See how to use VS Code with RAW and our Video Guide to getting started

After registration, you will also be provided the hostname for your API. This will be of the form <instance-name>.raw-labs.com, which means all APIs hosted by RAW will be under https://<instance-name>.raw-labs.com/.

2. Fork a 'Hello World' repositoty​

Now that you've set up the RAW account, it's time to create a GitHub repository for your API.

To get started, we provide an example 'Hello World' repository that defines two simple REST endpoints: /hello-world and /hello-name. You find this repository here.

To use it, however, you must first make a copy (aka 'Fork' in Git) of it. To copy it, go to the 'Hello World' repository page and click on the button 'Fork' on the top bar in right-hand side of the page. Forking will create a copy (aka 'clone' in Git) of that repository in your own GitHub account.

3. Authorize RAW to read your repository​

RAW monitors for changes in your repository, and publishes automically as an API. But to read your repository, RAW must be authorized to read it from your GitHub account.

To authorize RAW in GitHub, go to our GitHub app, click on Configure and choose the 'Hello World' repository. Then click on Install & Authorize.

Do not worry! RAW is only allowed to read the repositories you choose from within GitHub! You can add more, or remove repositories in GitHub too, or completely remove the app from your GitHub account by going to your GitHub Settings

At this point, RAW is authorized to read and monitor for changes in that GitHub repository.

4. Test your new Hello World API!​

And that's it! RAW will start reading your repository, parse its definitions and create the APIs automatically.

It should take only a few seconds for your API to go live. These will be:

  • https://<instance-name>.raw-labs.com/hello-world/hello-world
  • https://<instance-name>.raw-labs.com/hello-world/hello-name?name=Joe

You can monitor the process by going to our Administration console, The Catalog section of the Administration console also includes the full REST endpoint for the APIs just published.

Congratulations! You have now created your RAW account, learned the principles of authorization in GitHub and managed to publish your own RAW API!

Now it's time to create your own API, step-by-step in our tutorial.