Spira 8.15 Released: REST OpenAPI (Swagger) Documentation Available

12-Nov-2025 by Adam Sandman Product News

We are pleased to announce the release of the latest version (v8.15) of our award-winning test management SpiraTest system, application lifecycle management SpiraTeam platform, and enterprise agile planning platform - SpiraPlan. This new version includes a new documentation platform for our REST API that supports the OpenAPI (Swagger) standard, making it even easier to integrate Spira with other platforms and systems.

What is OpenAPI?

The OpenAPI Specification (OAS) is a language-agnostic standard for describing HTTP APIs. It defines exactly how your API works—its endpoints, methods, parameters, request/response bodies, authentication, and error codes—in a machine-readable JSON or YAML file. (It used to be called Swagger; Swagger is now the name of a popular toolset that uses OpenAPI.)

OpenAPI makes APIs easier to consume because it turns a service’s behavior into a precise, machine-readable contract. Instead of guessing how endpoints behave from ad-hoc docs or trial and error, developers get a single source of truth describing URLs, methods, parameters, request/response bodies, authentication, and error formats—usually in a concise YAML or JSON file. That consistency removes ambiguity, speeds up onboarding, and reduces integration bugs. It also improves discoverability: consumers can see the full surface area of an API at a glance, including examples, constraints (like required fields or enums), and standard error responses.

Because the spec is machine-readable, an entire tooling ecosystem springs to life for consumers. You can auto-generate interactive documentation (try-it consoles), client SDKs in multiple languages, mocks and stubs for testing, and even contract tests that validate payloads against schemas. Linting and governance tools catch breaking changes early, while versioning in the spec helps consumers plan upgrades. In short, OpenAPI lowers the cognitive load of learning an API, automates the boilerplate of calling it, and builds trust by making behavior predictable and testable.

These are just some of the reasons why we decided to add OpenAPI support to Spira. We are excited to see the new integration opportunities that customers and partners will take advantage of. Also since the REST API is one of the foundational building blocks, it will make it easier for customers and partners to create new SpiraApps.

Accessing the new Spira API Documentation

When you browse the Inflectra API documentation server, you will see the different API versions supported by Spira, with the option to display the original documentation (now called "Standard Documentation") and the new link to display the OpenAPI format documentation:

When you click on the OpenAPI Documentation link, you will see the OpenAPI specification for the v7.0 Spira REST API:

The great thing with OpenAPI is that as well as displaying all of the available resources, endpoints and sample payloads, you try invoking the method directly from the documentation page.

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If you want to try out invoking any of the endpoints, you cannot do that using our public documentation server, as you won't have the necessary authentication.

Instead, browse the web services on your own instance of Spira. and the documentation link on that instance will allow you to try out using the various methods:

In your own instance you can use the Authorize section to specify the necessary authentication information to access your Spira instance:

If you have any questions about using our REST API, please check out our general developer documentation, and feel free to log a ticket with our support team.