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Introduction

@apical-ts/craft effortlessly turn your OpenAPI specifications into fully-typed Zod v4 schemas ready for runtime (client or server) validation and TypeScript development.

You may ask, "Why another Typescript OpenAPI generator?" The answer lies in @apical-ts commitment to strict type safety. With @apical-ts/craft, you get:

  • no more unknown exceptions at runtime
  • no more access to properties that can be undefined
  • full support for multiple success responses (2xx) with payload
  • full support for multiple content types (json, xml, form data, etc.)
  • easy to debug operations with rich errors

Quick Start​

Get started with @apical-ts/craft in just a few commands:

# Generate schemas and client from an OpenAPI specification
npx @apical-ts/craft generate \
  --generate-server \
  --generate-client \
  -i https://petstore.swagger.io/v2/swagger.json \
  -o generated

# Install runtime dependencies for the generated code
cd generated
npm install

This will create:

  • server/ - Typed handler wrappers
  • client/ - Individual operation functions for each API endpoint
  • schemas/ - Zod schemas and TypeScript types
note

The generated client and server code requires zod as a runtime dependency for schema validation. Make sure to install it in your project.

Live Demo​

Explore the live demo to see @apical-ts/craft in action:

Why another generator?​

We all like the developer experience of tRPC, but not always we're in control of the backend. OpenAPI specifications provide a powerful way to define your API contracts, and with @apical-ts/craft, you can easily generate TypeScript code that strictly adheres to those contracts, all while enjoying a seamless developer experience.

Many existing generators lack flexibility and strong type safety. Most do not support multiple success responses or multiple content types, and their typings are often too loose—making it easy to accidentally access undefined properties. With stricter guardrails, @apical-ts/craft helps developers (and Gen-AIs) build more robust and reliable implementations.

Curious why you should choose this generator over others? See our comparison with alternative libraries for more details or check our comprehensive feature list for more information.

Key Features​

  • 🎯 Operation-based architecture - Each API operation becomes a standalone, typed function
  • 🛡️ Runtime validation - Built on Zod v4 for robust type safety and validation
  • 🔄 Multiple content types - Full support for JSON, XML, form data, and more
  • 📝 OpenAPI compatibility - Supports OpenAPI 2.0, 3.0.x, and 3.1.x specifications
  • 🚀 Zero dependencies - Generated code has minimal runtime dependencies
  • 🧪 Self-contained schemas - Generated Zod schemas can be used independently
  • ✅ Comprehensive testing - Thoroughly tested with a full test suite

Next Steps​