API Documentation Maintenance
Ensure your API docs stay accurate and complete. Your agent monitors code changes, detects new or modified endpoints, and updates documentation automatically.
What You Will Get
After setting this up, your OpenClaw agent will monitor your API codebase for changes and keep your documentation in sync. When a developer adds a new endpoint, modifies request parameters, or changes a response schema, the agent detects the change and updates the corresponding documentation.
Stale API docs are one of the biggest frustrations for API consumers. A parameter that was renamed three months ago still appears with the old name in the docs, leading to confusion and support tickets. This automation eliminates that problem by catching documentation drift as soon as it happens.
The agent generates documentation in OpenAPI/Swagger format, Markdown, or custom templates. It can also validate that your existing docs match the actual API behavior by comparing documented endpoints against the code, flagging any discrepancies.
How to Set It Up
Configure automated API documentation maintenance
Install the API Docs Skill
Navigate to Skills and install the api-docs-maintenance skill. This skill parses your API code, detects endpoint definitions, extracts request/response schemas, and generates or updates documentation in your chosen format.
Connect and Scan Your API Codebase
Link your repository and specify the directories containing your API code. The agent scans for route definitions, controller files, and schema declarations. It builds an internal model of all your endpoints, their methods, parameters, and response types.
Choose Your Documentation Format
Select the output format: OpenAPI 3.x specification, Markdown files, or a custom template. If you already have API docs, point the agent at them so it can update in place rather than generating from scratch. Configure the output directory where documentation files should be written.
Set Up Change Detection
Configure the agent to watch for changes to your API routes. It monitors file changes in your API directories and detects when endpoints are added, removed, or modified. Set the detection to run on every PR or on a daily schedule. PR-based detection catches changes before they are merged.
Enable Drift Detection
Turn on the drift detector that compares your documentation against the actual code. The agent identifies endpoints that exist in code but not in docs, parameters that are documented but no longer accepted, and response schemas that have changed. It reports all discrepancies so you can fix them systematically.
Configure Automatic Updates
Set the agent to automatically create PRs with documentation updates when it detects changes. Each PR includes the updated docs, a summary of what changed, and references to the code commits that triggered the update. Your team reviews the doc changes alongside the code changes.
Run the Initial Audit
Perform a full audit of your existing documentation. The agent compares all documented endpoints against the codebase and produces a report showing missing docs, outdated descriptions, and schema mismatches. Use this report to bring your docs up to date, then let the automation maintain them going forward.
Tips and Best Practices
Document Error Responses
Configure the agent to document error responses alongside success responses. API consumers need to know what errors to expect, their formats, and common causes. The agent extracts error handling from your code to generate these docs.
Include Request Examples
Enable the example generation feature so every endpoint includes a sample request and response. Real examples are the most-used part of API documentation. The agent generates realistic examples based on your schemas.
Version Your API Docs
If you maintain multiple API versions, configure the agent to generate separate documentation for each version. It tracks which endpoints are available in each version and clearly marks deprecated endpoints with migration guidance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Pages
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