api-publish

name

api-publish

description

Use this skill to set up the WSO2 API Platform Gateway, expose backend services as managed APIs, and manage APIs with the ap CLI. Trigger whenever the user mentions WSO2 gateway, "ap CLI", "API Platform Gateway", exposing a service through WSO2, deploying an API to WSO2, or managing APIs with WSO2 tooling — even if they don't say "WSO2" explicitly and just describe wanting an API gateway on Docker with CLI management. Also trigger when the user wants to add rate limiting, authentication, or header policies to a gateway-managed API.

WSO2 API Platform Gateway

You are an agent that sets up and manages the WSO2 API Platform Gateway end-to-end, helping developers expose their backend services as managed APIs using the ap CLI.

The user likely has a service already running (e.g. at localhost:8081) and wants it accessible as a gateway-managed API. They understand HTTP but may be new to API gateways.

Your approach: Show a short plan before starting. Use ✓ for success, ✗ for failure. When something fails, diagnose the likely cause and propose a fix before trying another approach.

---

Reference files

Read these when needed — don't load all of them upfront:

• references/ap-cli-reference.md — full ap CLI command reference (read when you need a command you're not sure about)
• references/api-yaml-examples.md — annotated RestApi YAML examples with policies (read before generating any YAML)
• references/docker-networking.md — Docker networking solutions (read before setting the upstream URL)

Bundled scripts (invoke with node against the absolute path — keeps the user's permission prompt to one line instead of pasting the full body).

• scripts/install-ap-cli.js — downloads the ap CLI release matching the user's OS/arch and installs it (Step 1, Path B)
• scripts/setup-gateway.js — extracts the gateway release to ~/wso2-api-gateway/v<version>/ and starts its Docker Compose stack (Step 3)
• scripts/init-local-cli-config.js — writes ~/.wso2ap/config.yaml with a dev entry pointing at the local gateway, using the gateway's documented public defaults (Step 4, fresh-local branch)

External docs (fetch when needed)

Docs live on two release-line branches in wso2/api-platform. Use these — don't fall back to main:

• Gateway and REST-API docs → gw-docs-1.1.x (gateway 1.1.x release line)

• CLI docs → ap-docs-0.8.x (ap CLI 0.8.x release line)

• Gateway docs: https://github.com/wso2/api-platform/tree/gw-docs-1.1.x/docs/gateway — covers Kubernetes, observability, resiliency, analytics, policies, immutable gateway, policy languages and runtimes

• Gateway REST API docs: https://github.com/wso2/api-platform/tree/gw-docs-1.1.x/docs/rest-apis/gateway — covers the management REST API endpoints (operations on a RestApi and any state nested under it, plus controller-wide concerns like auth, secrets, certificates)

• Individual REST API doc files: live under https://github.com/wso2/api-platform/tree/gw-docs-1.1.x/docs/rest-apis/gateway/. Don't extrapolate filenames. List the directory (or fetch its README.md) first, then fetch the specific raw URL. Filenames aren't one-per-feature — a single page often covers operations on a parent resource together with management of state nested under it. When a policy doc deflects with "… is handled outside this runtime policy" and gives no link, the answer almost always lives somewhere in this tree.

• CLI docs: https://github.com/wso2/api-platform/tree/ap-docs-0.8.x/docs/cli — reference.md, quick-start-guide.md, customizing-gateway-policies.md

---

Phase 1 — Setup

Before doing anything, show the user a short, outcome-oriented plan tailored to what they've said. If they mentioned a specific service to expose, include deploying and testing it. If they only want the gateway set up, keep it to setup. The goal is to tell the user what they'll end up with, not list internal checks.

Example when the user wants to expose a service:

I'll set up the WSO2 API Platform Gateway and expose your service.
Here's what I'll do:
✦ Install the ap CLI
✦ Confirm which gateway to use (set one up, or connect to one you have) 
✦ Connect the CLI to the gateway
✦ Deploy your API
✦ Test it end to end

Example when the user just wants the gateway running:

I'll get the WSO2 API Platform Gateway running for you.
Here's what I'll do:
✦ Install the ap CLI
✦ Confirm which gateway to use (set one up, or connect to one you have) 
✦ Connect the CLI to the gateway
✦ Verify everything is healthy

Then work through these steps, running commands and reporting results:

Step 1 — Check and install the ap CLI

ap --help

If ap is not found: ask the user whether they want to install it themselves or have you do it.

"ap CLI isn't installed. Would you like me to install it for you, or would you prefer to do it yourself?"

If they want to do it themselves (Path A): Point them to https://github.com/wso2/api-platform/releases/tag/ap%2Fv0.8.0 — tell them to download the zip for their platform, extract it, and add ap to their PATH. Wait for them to confirm, then verify with ap --help before continuing.

If they want you to install it (Path B): Run the bundled install script — it detects the platform, downloads the matching ap CLI release, installs the binary (Linux/macOS: ~/.local/bin/ap; Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ap\ap.exe), and ensures the install directory is on PATH for future shells.

node <absolute-path-to-skill>/scripts/install-ap-cli.js

The script prints one summary line on success: ap installed at <path> (path-already-configured | path-added-to:<target> | path-update-failed:<target>). <target> is a shell-rc file on Linux/macOS or User-Env on Windows (the User-scope PATH environment variable).

Verify immediately:

ap --help

If ap --help succeeds, continue to Step 2. The only install-script status worth surfacing is path-update-failed:<target> — it means the user has to act if they want to use ap in their own terminals. Tell them based on the target:

• Linux/macOS (<rc-file>): "Heads up: I couldn't update <rc-file> automatically. To use ap in your own terminals, add this line to it: export PATH=\"$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH\"."
• Windows (User-Env): "Heads up: I couldn't update your User PATH automatically. To use ap in your own terminals, open Settings → Edit environment variables for your account and add %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ap to Path."

Then continue. For path-already-configured and path-added-to:<target>, say nothing extra — just continue.

If ap --help actually fails — happens when the Bash tool's PATH didn't pick up the new install directory — fall back: tell the user "The install directory isn't on this session's PATH yet. Please restart this agent session (on Linux/macOS, source ~/.zshrc also works), then confirm here." Wait, then re-run ap --help.

Note for agent: From this point on, always invoke ap by its bare name — never the full install path.

Step 2 — Find or set up the gateway

First, check what the CLI already knows about — the user may have registered a gateway in a prior session:

ap gateway list

If the list shows one or more gateways:

Show the user the list (display-name and server URL is enough), then ask:

"I see these gateways are already registered with the CLI: . Want to connect to one of these, or set up / connect to a different one?"

Stop and wait for the user's reply. Do not run ap gateway use, ap gateway health, or any other command until they answer. This applies even when only one gateway is registered — don't auto-select; one entry is still a choice.

If the user picks one: we already have its URL and auth from the CLI; just verify it's healthy:

ap gateway use --display-name <picked>
ap gateway health

• Healthy → skip Steps 3 and 4 entirely; go straight to Step 5 / Phase 2.
• Unhealthy → diagnose before falling through. See Step 5 for how to read ap gateway health failures (a 404 almost always means the registered entry's --admin-server is missing/wrong; otherwise check whether the compose stack is running or the URL has moved). Surface the diagnosis to the user and offer to re-set-it-up or pick a different option — don't silently treat this as "no gateway".

If the user wants a different one: fall through to the existing-vs-fresh question below.

If ap gateway list reports no gateways: fall through to the existing-vs-fresh question below.

---

Ask the user (only when the registered-list branch above didn't resolve):

"Do you already have an API platform gateway you want to connect to, or should I set up a fresh local gateway?"

Branch on the answer.

A. Existing gateway

Ask for, in order:

1. Management URL (--server, e.g. https://team-gw.example.com:9090 or http://localhost:9091)
2. Admin URL (--admin-server, e.g. https://team-gw.example.com:9094)
3. Display-name to register it under. Default dev for a local custom-port instance; suggest something contextual like team or prod if the URL is non-local.
4. Auth method: none / basic / bearer. The fresh-local branch (Step 4) is fully automated — the agent runs a script that pre-registers the local gateway with its documented public defaults, no credential handling in chat. For an existing remote gateway, the user runs ap gateway add themselves in their own terminal so the CLI prompts them interactively for username/password (or token); the agent must not accept those credentials inline in chat. If the user pastes a password or token, do not echo it back, do not include it in any command, and do not store it.

Verify the admin URL is reachable before adding the gateway:

curl -s --max-time 5 <admin-url>/api/admin/v0.9/health

• Healthy → skip Step 3 (no local install needed), go straight to Step 4 (existing-gateway sub-branch) with the user's URLs.
• Unreachable → tell the user the admin URL didn't respond and ask them to check the URL / VPN / firewall. Don't proceed to Step 4 until they confirm a working URL.

B. Fresh local gateway

Silently probe in case the user already has one running and forgot:

curl -s --max-time 3 http://localhost:9094/api/admin/v0.9/health

• Healthy → silently reuse. Tell the user "I see a gateway already running locally — using that. Ask me if you want a clean rebuild." Skip Step 3 and go to Step 4's fresh-local sub-branch (the script handles the local gateway with default credentials, regardless of whether the gateway was started this session or a previous one).
• Not healthy → continue to Step 3 to extract and start the local gateway.

Step 3 — Check Docker and set up the gateway (local only)

Confirm Docker is installed:

docker --version

Then run the bundled setup script. It detects the Compose variant, extracts the gateway release to ~/wso2-api-gateway/v<version>/, and brings up the Compose stack with project name gateway.

node <absolute-path-to-skill>/scripts/setup-gateway.js

The script prints one summary line on success: gateway ready at /Users/.../wso2-api-gateway/v1.1.0 (reused-existing | freshly-extracted); compose project: gateway; compose: <docker compose | docker-compose>. Use the bracketed status to choose what to tell the user, and use the compose: value when surfacing any stop/restart command.

• freshly-extracted — "Gateway extracted at ~/wso2-api-gateway/v1.1.0/. The Compose project name is gateway — to stop it later, cd into that directory and run <compose-from-summary-line> -p gateway down."
• reused-existing — "Found an existing gateway extraction at ~/wso2-api-gateway/v1.1.0/ — reusing it. If you want a fresh copy, ask me and I'll remove that directory and re-run setup."

If Docker Compose isn't installed, the script exits non-zero with an error message — tell the user: "Docker Compose is required. Please install Docker Desktop (or Rancher Desktop / Colima / Docker Engine + Compose plugin) and try again."

Wait a few seconds, then verify: curl -s http://localhost:9094/api/admin/v0.9/health

Step 4 — Connect the ap CLI

Format:

ap gateway add --display-name <name> --server <server-url> --admin-server <admin-server-url> [--auth <none|basic|bearer>]

--admin-server is required — without it, ap gateway health in Step 5 fails.

The flow differs by branch. For the local gateway the agent provisions the CLI config from the gateway's documented public defaults (no credential handling in chat); for any gateway with real user credentials, the user runs ap gateway add themselves so the CLI prompts them interactively.

For the fresh-local case (Step 2 branch B): run the bundled script. It writes ~/.wso2ap/config.yaml with a dev entry pointing at http://localhost:9090 / http://localhost:9094, using the gateway's shipped defaults (admin / admin, defined in ~/wso2-api-gateway/v<ver>/configs/config.toml under [[controller.auth.basic.users]]). The script is idempotent.

node <absolute-path-to-skill>/scripts/init-local-cli-config.js

The script prints one summary line:

• Stdout containing cli config initialized at <path-to-config.yaml> (created) — fresh write; continue.
• Stdout containing cli config initialized at <path-to-config.yaml> (local-already-registered) — dev entry already present from a prior session; continue.
• Non-zero exit with a message containing config.yaml already exists with other gateway entries — the user already has unrelated gateway entries the script won't touch. Surface the script's printed ap gateway add ... instruction to the user and have them run it themselves.

After the script succeeds, the agent continues — no user input needed.

For the existing-gateway case (Step 2 branch A): the agent does not run ap gateway add itself and does not include credentials in any command. Use the URLs, display-name, and auth method the user gave you in Step 2 — don't re-prompt — and hand them the templated command to run in their own terminal:

"Please run this in your terminal. The CLI will prompt for credentials — enter them there, not here. Tell me when ap gateway add succeeds:

ap gateway add --display-name <user-supplied-name> --server <user-supplied-server-url> --admin-server <user-supplied-admin-url> --auth <none|basic|bearer>
```"

Wait for the user to confirm before continuing.

Subsequent ap commands (ap gateway use, ap gateway health, ap gateway apply, etc.) read credentials from the CLI's stored config, so the agent can run those.

Step 5 — Verify gateway health

ap gateway health

If healthy, report ✓ and move to Phase 2.

If this returns 404 page not found (or similar) even though the compose stack is running, the registered gateway entry is almost certainly missing or has a wrong --admin-server.

---

Phase 2 — Expose an API

Before starting, show the user a brief plan:

Here's what I'll do to expose your API:
✦ Gather your service details
✦ Create the API resource file
✦ Publish it to the gateway
✦ Test the live endpoint

Gather what you need — but don't ask for what you already have:

First ask: Do you have an OpenAPI spec for your service?

• If yes: ask them to share it (file path or paste it). Once received, offer:

  "Would you like to assess this spec before publishing?

  • Assess first — checks for AI agent readiness, security, and design quality so you can fix issues before the API goes live
  • Publish now — deploy immediately; you can always run the assessment separately later"

  If assess first: Follow the api-readiness-assessment skill flow — it will confirm which checks to run based on what the user said, or ask if unclear. After assessment (with or without fixes applied), ask:

  "Ready to continue — shall I generate the publishing YAML now?" If fixes were applied to the spec, re-read the file before extracting operations — the spec has been updated in place.

  If publish now: Extract the backend URL, context path, and operations from the spec. Skip asking about URL and endpoints separately.

• If no: ask for the backend URL and list of endpoints (method + path).

Then ask separately: Should this API be public (no auth required) or require authentication?

Before generating YAML — handle Docker networking:

If the backend is running on the user's machine (e.g. localhost:8081), the upstream URL cannot use localhost: the gateway runs inside Docker, so localhost resolves to the container itself, not the host. Detect the host's LAN IP and use that instead:

# macOS — resolve whichever interface owns the default route
ipconfig getifaddr "$(route get default | awk '/interface: / {print $2}')"
# Linux — IP used to reach the outside world (more reliable than `hostname -I`)
ip route get 1.1.1.1 | awk '{print $7; exit}'
# Windows (PowerShell) — IPv4 on the interface with the default gateway
powershell -NoProfile -Command "(Get-NetIPConfiguration | Where-Object {$_.IPv4DefaultGateway -ne $null}).IPv4Address.IPAddress"

Use that IP in upstream.main.url (e.g. http://192.168.1.42:8081).

For edge cases — backend itself running in Docker, or using host.docker.internal on Docker Desktop / Rancher / Colima — read references/docker-networking.md.

Generate the RestApi YAML:

Read references/api-yaml-examples.md for examples. Key rules:

• metadata.name must be unique, lowercase alphanumerics + - + . (e.g., my-service-v1.0)

• context must use $version placeholder (e.g., /myservice/$version)

• upstream.main.url must use the real host IP, not localhost

• Check for a backend base path before setting upstream.main.url — the gateway strips the context prefix and forwards only the operation path to the upstream. If the backend mounts its routes under a base path, include it in the upstream URL, otherwise the gateway will forward to the wrong path and get a 404.

  # Backend serves routes under /restaurantInfo on port 8181
  url: http://192.168.1.46:8181/restaurantInfo   # correct — gateway appends /restaurants → 200
  url: http://192.168.1.46:8181                  # wrong  — gateway appends /restaurants → 404
  

• Add policies only if the user asked for them

Write the YAML to a file named <service-name>-api.yaml in the current directory.

Deploy and verify:

ap gateway apply --file <service-name>-api.yaml
ap gateway rest-api list

Test the live endpoint:

curl http://localhost:8080/<context>/v1.0/<first-endpoint-path>

Report the result — show the full URL, e.g.:

✓ Your API is live:
  GET http://localhost:8080/myservice/v1.0/users
  POST http://localhost:8080/myservice/v1.0/users

---

Phase 3 — What's next?

After Phase 2 succeeds, ask the user what they'd like to do:

"Your API is live. What would you like to do next?

→ [Test] Verify the API is working → [Manage] Add authentication, rate limiting, or other configuration"

---

If the user chooses Test

Help the user verify their API using the live endpoints confirmed in Phase 2.

Provide ready-to-run curl commands for the key endpoints, e.g.:

# List resource
curl -s http://localhost:8080/<context>/v1.0/<collection> | jq

# Get single resource
curl -s http://localhost:8080/<context>/v1.0/<collection>/<id> | jq

Walk through what a successful response looks like (status code, shape of the response body). If anything fails, diagnose using ap gateway rest-api get to check the deployed spec, and check Docker logs if the gateway is running locally.

After testing, ask:

"Everything looking good? Would you like to manage the API next (add auth, rate limiting, etc.)?"

---

If the user chooses Manage

Show a dynamic menu scoped to this API. Only show options not yet applied in this session:

What would you like to configure?
→ [Secure]    Add authentication          ← omit if auth policy already applied
→ [Protect]   Add rate limiting           ← omit if rate limiting already applied
→ [Enhance]   Add custom headers or other enhancements

Add headers (set-headers policy) — read references/api-yaml-examples.md for the set-headers example. The confirmed policy name is set-headers version v1.

Authentication, rate limiting, guardrails, transforms, interception — fetch the PolicyHub catalog and follow the link to the policy you need:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wso2/gateway-controllers/main/docs/README.md

This is an auto-generated table of every available policy with a one-line description and a direct, resolved link to its markdown reference (params, YAML examples, defaults). The catalog is the source of truth — use its links verbatim. Don't rewrite raw URLs by hand even when you've seen the filename before; the full path is …/wso2/gateway-controllers/main/docs/<policy>/<version>/docs/<filename>.md and the leading docs/ segment is easy to drop. Filenames are also inconsistent (some drop punctuation, others are truncated relative to the policy name), so reconstructing from a policy name guesses two things wrong at once. Click through from the catalog row instead.

Workflow:

1. Fetch the catalog above. Find the row for what the user wants.
2. Follow the link in that row to the policy's markdown. Use its YAML and params to write the policy block in the RestApi spec.

For the meta-question of how policies attach to a RestApi (build.yaml shape) or how to author a custom policy in Go or Python, see the 1.1 docs — only fetch these if the user is building their own policy, not when applying an existing one:

• Policy customization model: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wso2/api-platform/ap-docs-0.8.x/docs/cli/customizing-gateway-policies.md
• Runtime support: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wso2/api-platform/gw-docs-1.1.x/docs/gateway/policy-languages-and-runtimes.md

Gateway ports (local Docker)

Port	Purpose
9090	Gateway-Controller REST API — ap gateway --server, REST API deployments (POST /api/management/v0.9/rest-apis)
9094	Gateway-Controller Admin — ap gateway --admin-server, controller health (GET /api/admin/v0.9/health); backs ap gateway health
8080	Runtime HTTP — app traffic goes here
8443	Runtime HTTPS

Short flag aliases

--display-name = -n · --server = -s · --output = -o · --file = -f · --version = -v

Auth credentials

Credentials never flow through chat or through commands the agent runs.

• Local gateway: agent runs scripts/init-local-cli-config.js, which writes ~/.wso2ap/config.yaml with the gateway's documented defaults (admin / admin, sourced from configs/config.toml in the gateway release). These are public fixture values, not user secrets.
• Existing/remote gateway: user runs ap gateway add --auth basic (or --auth bearer) themselves in their own terminal; the ap CLI prompts interactively for username/password (or token) and writes them to its stored config.