u/Due_Length_2169

I've always hated that every API documentation tool makes you do extra work before you get anything useful. Annotation-based tools like swagger-jsdoc start with a completely blank UI you have to go annotate every route before you see a single endpoint. Traffic-based tools show routes but leave them schema-less until you manually hit each one. Either way, documentation becomes a separate project you maintain alongside your actual code.

So I built nodox-cli. Add one line and your entire existing API is already documented schemas included.

npm install nodox-cli
app.use(nodox(app))

That's it. No annotations, no YAML, no code generators, no changes to your existing handlers.

How does it actually detect schemas without annotations?

It runs a 5-layer pipeline:

• Layer 1 — reads any schema you explicitly attach via the optional validate() wrapper
• Layer 2 — statically scans your route handler source for Zod / Joi / yup / express-validator references and extracts field names and types
• Layer 3 — dry-runs your handler with a mock request in a sandbox (no DB calls, no network, no filesystem writes) and observes what it reads
• Layer 4 — loads shapes recorded from your real test suite via .apicache.json
• Layer 5 — intercepts live res.json() responses as they flow through in development

Higher-confidence layers always win. Real traffic never overwrites a statically-detected schema.

Features:

• Zero-annotation route discovery — every Express route appears in the UI automatically on first server start
• Interactive playground — send live requests from the browser; path params render as inline inputs, body fields pre-filled from detected schema
• Chain builder — wire routes together on a canvas, pass response fields between steps using {{step0.id}} interpolation, simulate full multi-step flows without leaving the docs
• Response diff — save a baseline response and compare against future calls to catch regressions
• Environment switcher — swap base URL between local, staging, and production without leaving the UI
• Test suite integration — npx nodox init hooks into Jest or Vitest and starts recording real request/response shapes automatically, no test code changes needed
• express-validator support — check(), body(), param() chains detected automatically, field types inferred from validator names like isEmail, isInt, isUUID
• validate() wrapper (optional) — attach Zod, Joi, yup, or plain JSON Schema to a route for confirmed schemas + runtime 400 validation; strictly optional, the other 4 layers run regardless
• Production safe — complete no-op when NODE_ENV=production by default
• TypeScript first — ESM with CJS fallback, types included, Zod v3 and v4 both supported

Think FastAPI's /docs, but for Node.js — except the first time you open it, your whole API is already there.

Would love feedback — especially from anyone who's tried similar tools and hit the same friction. What's missing? What would make this actually fit into your workflow?

Github : https://github.com/dhruv-bhalodia/nodox-cli/
npm : https://libraries.io/npm/nodox-cli