---
title: Design APIs
description: Introduction to API design in Insomnia.
url: "/insomnia/design/"
canonical_url: "/insomnia/design/"
content_type: landing_page
products:
- Insomnia
tags:
- design-apis
canonical: true


---






# Design APIs with Insomnia


## Design and preview new APIs with OpenAPI
Using Insomnia, you can create or upload an API spec to a document. 
  
  Insomnia can help you write or edit your spec with the following:  


- View a generated preview of your spec in the right pane.
- Automatically linted. Errors display at the bottom of the center pane and include error type, line number, and error message
- View information about your spec in the left sidebar, such as servers, request body, and schemas.
- Collaboratively create APIs with an unlimited number of contributors (free accounts allow unlimited contributors on one project) and [git version control](/insomnia/git-sync/).
- Generate code snippets automatically in over 12 different programming languages.




![Image of the generating collections and tests](/assets/images/insomnia/design-document.png)


## Get started


### Design APIs with documents

Use Insomnia to create APIs with a spec-first approach. Leverage OpenAPI, live API previews, and more.

[Learn more](/how-to/create-a-design-document/)


### Validate your API specs

Automatically validate OpenAPI specs with the Inso CLI and custom linting rules.

[Learn more](/how-to/add-custom-linting-rules/)


### Collaborate on APIs

Collaborate with others and use git version control on your APIs.

[Learn more](/insomnia/storage/#git-sync)


### Deploy an API with Konnect

Deploy your APIs with API Products in Konnect.

[Learn more](/dev-portal/)


## Learn


### API specs

Insomnia provides capabilities to create, import, lint, and collaborate on API specs. 
You can easily generate a collection of requests from an API spec.


[Learn more about API specs in Insomnia](/insomnia/api-specs/)


### Documents

Design documents (also called documents) hold API specifications, API requests, and tests. 

Documents have three main capabilities: design APIs, debug APIs, and test APIs.


[Learn about design documents](/insomnia/documents/)