Investigate Angular 11.x and RxJS clients generated with OpenAPI Generator

[tschaffter]

Test with one of the NLP Sandbox microservice (e.g. date annotator). If the client library is intuitive to use, this could become a component of the ROCC Angular app.

https://github.com/OpenAPITools/openapi-generator#overview

[tschaffter]

Relevant client types from npx @openapitools/openapi-generator-cli list:

• [x] typescript-angular (doc)
• [x] typescript-node (doc)
• [ ] typescript-rxjs (doc)

[tschaffter]

Angular client library

Pros:

• Provides TS interfaces for all the schemas defined in the OpenAPI schemas 💯
• Methods returns RxJS Observables
• Ready to be published to npmjs.
• Provides instructions to consume the client library in a project without publishing it (ideal for development)
• Support auth with Access Token

Cons:

• An extra GH repository

Decision: The pros seems to overweight the cons.

[tschaffter]

Node client library

Pros:

Cons:

• The model generated are typescript classes (interfaces is preferrable)
• No README
• How to import this library in an Angular project?

Decision: Not as good as the Angular client library

[tschaffter]

RxJS client library

Pros:

• Provides TS interfaces for all the schemas defined in the OpenAPI schemas 💯
• Methods returns RxJS Observables
• Support auth with Access Token

Cons:

• No README
• Not clear yet how to consume this client in an Angular app.

Others:

• Uses RxJS AjaxRequest to perform request. How does it compare to Angular HttpClient?

Decision: The Angular client library includes all the benefits of the RxJS library without the cons.

[tschaffter]

Still need to decide between:

1. store the client library in its own GH repo and push client to npmjs OR
2. integrate the files (interfaces, Angular services) created by the OpenAPI Generator to the client codebase (e.g. ROCC Angular App)

One element in favor of Option 1 is if the client relies on API services generated from different OpenAPI documents. The Angular library client are nicely bundled and the documentation in the README describe how to integrate multiple Angular library clients into an Angular app. The cost of maintaining the library client could be made very small if all it takes is to rerun the generator fed with the new version of the OpenAPI document. This could even be automated using GH workflow by configuring the creation of a PR when a new API version is released (see docker-elk update.yml workflow).

[tschaffter]

@vpchung I created the client library Sage-Bionetworks/rocc-angular. Both the interfaces and services created look great!