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SHT-03 · Developer tooling · 2025

Specord

Reads your NestJS source and writes the OpenAPI spec — without ever booting the app.

Open sourceSource on GitHub ↗

The surface

Most OpenAPI tooling documents your API by running it: boot the app, scan the decorators, hope the output matches reality. Specord goes the other way. It reads the TypeScript source itself — controllers, routes, DTOs — and emits a validated OpenAPI 3.1 document describing what the code actually does.

No decorators, no @nestjs/swagger, no runtime at all. If it's in the source, it's in the spec. A CLI wraps it up: inspect routes, generate the document, serve local docs.

Why it exists

Docs that describe what you meant are marketing. Docs that describe what you wrote are engineering. I wanted the second kind, and I didn't want to boot an app to get it.

The system

  • Static analysis over the TypeScript AST — routes and DTOs extracted straight from source.
  • Emits OpenAPI 3.1, validated before it's written — a broken spec fails loudly, not quietly.
  • Zero runtime dependency on the target app: nothing boots, nothing mocks, nothing lies.
  • CLI for inspection, generation and a local docs server.

Where it stands

Open source and self-serving: Semblia's contracts are exactly the kind of thing it exists to keep honest.


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