Warning

Do not use Connexion 3.0 in production yet!

Connexion 3.0 is currently available in alpha to give users the ability to test it and provide feedback while we further polish the codebase and update the documentation.

Getting started with Connexion 3.0

Connexion 3.0 brings some major changes compared to 2.X:

  • Connexion can now be used as middleware to supercharge any ASGI or WSGI compatible framework.

  • Aiohttp support has been dropped in favor of an ASGI compatible AsyncApp built on top of Starlette.

  • Connexion functionality is now pluggable by adding or removing middleware.

  • Validation is now pluggable by content type, solving longstanding issues regarding endpoints with multiple content types and providing a pluggable interface.

Install alpha version

Install the latest alpha version using

pip install --pre connexion

Using stand-alone Connexion

You can use Connexion as a stand-alone web framework, using one of the available apps:

  • The FlaskApp, which is built on top of Flask as known from Connexion 2.X.

  • The AsyncApp, which is built on top of starlette and provides native asynchronous functionality.

If you don’t require compatibility with the Flask ecosystem, we recommend to use the AsyncApp. Even when writing mostly synchronous code, as you can just use synchronous view functions.

Using Connexion with ASGI or WSGI frameworks

If you want to leverage Connexion functionality with third party ASGI frameworks, you can use the ConnexionMiddleware and wrap it around a third party application.

This provides all Connexion functionality except for automatic routing, automatic parameter injection, and response serialization. You can add some of this functionality using Decorators provided by Connexion:

  • FlaskDecorator: provides automatic parameter injection and response serialization for Flask applications.

  • ASGIDecorator: provides automatic parameter injection for ASGI applications. Note that this decorator injects Starlette datastructures (such as UploadFile).

  • StarletteDecorator: provides automatic parameter injection and response serialization for Starlette applications.

For examples, see https://github.com/spec-first/connexion/tree/main/examples/frameworks.

Pluggable validation by content type

Validation is now pluggable by content type, which means that the VALIDATOR_MAP has been updated to accommodate this.

You can use the connexion.datastructures.MediaTypeDict to support content type ranges.

VALIDATOR_MAP = {
    "parameter": ParameterValidator,
    "body": MediaTypeDict(
        {
            "*/*json": JSONRequestBodyValidator,
            "application/x-www-form-urlencoded": FormDataValidator,
            "multipart/form-data": MultiPartFormDataValidator,
        }
    ),
    "response": MediaTypeDict(
        {
            "*/*json": JSONResponseBodyValidator,
            "text/plain": TextResponseBodyValidator,
        }
    ),
}

You can pass it either to the app, or when registering an API.

app = connexion.App(__name__, validator_map=VALIDATOR_MAP)
app.add_api("openapi.yaml", validator_map=VALIDATOR_MAP)

An AbstractRequestBodyValidator and AbstractResponseBodyValidator class are available to support the creation of custom validators.

ASGI Server

Connexion 3.0 needs to be run using an ASGI server instead of a WSGI server. While any ASGI server should work, connexion comes with uvicorn as an extra:

pip install connexion[uvicorn]

Smaller breaking changes

  • The options argument has been renamed to swagger_ui_options

  • The uri_parser_class is now passed to the App or its add_api() method directly instead of via the options argument.

  • The jsonifier is now passed to the App or its add_api() method instead of setting it as an attribute on the Api.

  • Drop Flask 1.X support and support Flask 2.X async routes

  • Drop Python 3.6 (and add Python 3.10) support

  • connexion.request is now a Starlette Request instead of a Flask Request

  • Route priority changed. The most specific route should now be defined first in the specification.

  • We no longer guess a content type for response serialization if multiple are defined in the spec. We do take into account returned headers.

  • Don’t return 400 when read-only property is received

  • Content type is now validated for requests and responses if defined in the spec

  • The deprecated positions for x-body-name are no longer supported

  • The parameter pass_context_arg_name has been removed. Context is now available as global request-level context, or can be passed in by defining a context_ parameter in your view function.

  • The MethodViewResolver has been renamed to MethodResolver, and a new MethodViewResolver has been added to work with Flask’s MethodView specifically.

  • Built-in support for uWSGI has been removed. You can re-add this functionality using a custom middleware.

Non-breaking changes

  • Relative and nested refs are now supported in OpenAPI / Swagger specifications

  • The required keyword is now supported for requestBodies

  • HTTP exceptions are now implemented as a hierarchy

  • Connexion now exposes context, operation, receive, scope as global request-level context

  • Connexion now provides a DefaultsJSONRequestBodyValidator to fill in default values in received request bodies.

Feedback

We would really love to hear from you. By trying Connexion 3 now and providing feedback, you get the opportunity to make sure that updating your application will be as painless as possible, while helping to create a more stable GA release.