API Client Generator for TypeScript

Background

This tool is a TypeScript client library generator for network APIs specified by protocol buffers (including, but not limited to, client libraries for Google Cloud APIs).

It can be used for any API that uses protocol buffers and follows the conventions described in API Improvement Proposals.

Getting started

The Showcase API is a good API to play with if you want to start generating your own client libraries. It has several services, we'll use Echo service as an example.

Proto definitions for Echo service

Take a look at echo.proto that describes a simple network service.

Download the proto files locally (the following examples work in Linux or macOS):

$ curl -L https://github.com/googleapis/gapic-showcase/releases/download/v0.6.1/gapic-showcase-0.6.1-protos.tar.gz | tar xz

Run the generator to generate TypeScript libraries

The easiest way to get started is to use our Docker image:

$ mkdir showcase-typescript
$ docker run --rm --user $UID \
  --mount type=bind,source=`pwd`/google/showcase/v1beta1,destination=/in/google/showcase/v1beta1,readonly \
  --mount type=bind,source=`pwd`/showcase-typescript,destination=/out \
  gcr.io/gapic-images/gapic-generator-typescript:latest

The resulting files are in showcase-typescript folder:

$ cd showcase-typescript
$ npm install  # install dependencies
$ npm run fix  # format the code
$ npm test     # run unit tests

Start the server that serves an API

Download the pre-compiled binary for your operating system from the Releases page and start the binary, or just use Docker:

# in another window
$ docker run -p 7469:7469/tcp -p 7469:7469/udp -p 1337:1337/tcp --rm gcr.io/gapic-images/gapic-showcase:0.6.1

Write your JavaScript or TypeScript code that uses the server!

Assuming you have Node.js installed and node binary in your path:

$ node
Welcome to Node.js v12.1.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> const showcase = require('.')  // assuming you're in showcase-typescript
undefined
> const client = new showcase.EchoClient({ sslCreds: require('@grpc/grpc-js').credentials.createInsecure() })
undefined
> client.echo({ content: 'hello world!' }).then(console.log)
Promise { <pending> }
> [ { content: 'hello world!' }, undefined, undefined ]

Making changes to the generated code

If you came here to make changes to the generated TypeScript libraries (e.g. @google-cloud/ packages), you are in the right place! Chances are high you don't need to edit any code, just the Nunjucks templates located in the templates folder.

This project is written in TypeScript, but we use Bazel for managing dependencies (for unrelated reasons), which makes the build process a little bit unusual.

Good news is that you don't really need to learn Bazel to make a quick fix. All bazel commands are hidden under the hood, so just use regular npm commands and just don't be surprised to see a lot of extra output.

To compile the code, if you have Bazel

bazel build //...

If you don't have Bazel:

# in gapic-generator-typescript folder
$ npm install --global yarn # install yarn if you haven't already
$ yarn install      # install dependencies
$ npm run compile  # build project with Bazel

To run the generator:

bazel run //:gapic_generator_typescript -- --help

Note: this section will be updated soon. After updating Bazel rules in googleapis, the generator will be actually called by running bazel build on a specific target in googleapis repository. Until this is ready, the following will work:

Checkout googleapis, which has a lot of protobuf definitions of real Google Cloud APIs:

$ git clone https://github.com/googleapis/googleapis.git
$ export GOOGLEAPIS="`pwd`/googleapis"  # save the path.

Pick some API, how about translate v3?

$ mkdir -p /tmp/translate-v3-typescript  # where to put the result
# from gapic-generator-typescript folder:
$ bazel run //:gapic_generator_typescript -- \
    --output-dir /tmp/translate-v3-typescript \
    -I "$GOOGLEAPIS" \
    --grpc-service-config "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/translate/v3/translate_grpc_service_config.json" \
    --service-yaml "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/translate/v3/translate_v3.yaml" \
    `find "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/translate/v3" -name '*.proto'` \
    "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/common_resources.proto" 

Line by line:

• -I "$GOOGLEAPIS" means pass the googleapis to protoc
• --output-dir /tmp/translate-v3-typescript is where to put the result
• --grpc-service-config "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/translate/v3/translate_grpc_service_config.json" is an optional configuration file for timeouts and stuff
• --service-yaml "$GOOGLEAPIS/google/cloud/translate/v3/translate_v3.yaml" is the file that lists any mixin apis that should be generated into the library
• Then we add all the translate v3 proto file to the command line, as well as the proto file that defines common resources (some APIs need it, some others don't).

If you like the changes, make sure that tests pass!

$ npm test

Oh no, baseline tests fail! That's expected: you might've changed the templates. Just do this:

$ npm run baseline

Add all the changed files and send a PR! Thank you for the contribution!

Want to know more?

Read the AIPs or just create an issue in this repository if you have questions! We support some cool things such as streaming RPCs, auto-pagination for certain types of RPCs, and long running operations.

Disclaimer

This is not an official Google product.