# OpenAPI definition for Node-RED backend

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/openapi-definition-for-node-red-backend/99941>\
**Category:** Share Your Projects\
**Tags:** openapi, formalisation\
**Created:** [13 December 2025 08:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/openapi-definition-for-node-red-backend/99941 "2025-12-13T08:54:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![gregorius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/gregorius/32/73816_2.png) [@gregorius](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/gregorius)\
**Post date:** [13 December 2025 08:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/openapi-definition-for-node-red-backend/99941/1 "2025-12-13T08:54:01Z")

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Hi there

this is an idea for a project but there isn't an "I have an Idea" category.

So having created [Browser-Red](https://deadred.openmindmap.org) the serverless Node-RED and [Erlang-Red](https://ered.fly.dev/erlang-red) the Erlang backed Node-RED editor, I've been playing around with the flow editor for a while now. I have basically implemented the flow editor API twice now - once in the [browser](https://github.com/gorenje/deadred.openmindmap.org/blob/f10e4aff482a1e3246b0bb923535a2ff3824ea49/red/deadred.js#L1032-L1382) and once in [Erlang](https://github.com/gorenje/erlang-red/tree/main/src/routes)

My idea is this: to encourage more XYZ-Red (i.e. Python-Red, Rust-Red, Lisp-Red, Node-RED-Red, etc), is to formally define the APIs required for driving the flow editor front end, i.e. clearly define a set of minimal required APIs to get the flow editor working.

Some of them are defined in this [flow](https://flowhub.org/f/15cc9fb0e94d56cd) and some in the browser link above.

The aim would be to do enough so that that the flow editor can "deploy" a flow to the server (i.e. send the flows as json to the server and get "ok" response back). With the OpenAPI specification, it should be possible to set up a basic "flow receiver" backend from where the developer could parse and implement the nodes in the flows.json ....