Smithy

aid: smithy
name: Smithy
description: Smithy is an open source, protocol-agnostic interface definition language (IDL) and toolchain developed at AWS
  for defining, validating, and generating API clients, servers, and documentation for any programming language. It powers
  the AWS SDK code generation pipeline and supports protocol-agnostic API modeling with traits, validators, and code generators.
  Smithy IDL 2.0 is the current stable version.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
- AWS
- Code Generation
- IDL
- SDKs
- API Design
- Interface Definition Language
- Toolchain
created: '2026-03-25'
modified: '2026-05-02'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/smithy/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: smithy:smithy-idl
  name: Smithy IDL
  description: The Smithy Interface Definition Language (IDL) is a specification for defining API models using shapes and
    traits. Models can be written in the Smithy IDL syntax or the JSON AST representation. Smithy 2.0 is the current stable
    version with improved nullability, enums, resource properties, and mixins.
  humanURL: https://smithy.io/2.0/
  tags:
  - IDL
  - API Design
  - Specification
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://smithy.io/2.0/
  - type: Specification
    url: https://smithy.io/2.0/spec/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://smithy.io/2.0/quickstart.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy
- aid: smithy:smithy-cli
  name: Smithy CLI
  description: The Smithy CLI is a command-line tool for building, validating, diffing, and transforming Smithy models. It
    can generate JSON AST representations, run model validation, perform backwards-compatibility checks, and generate artifacts
    from Smithy models.
  humanURL: https://smithy.io/2.0/guides/smithy-cli/index.html
  tags:
  - CLI
  - Build Tools
  - Validation
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://smithy.io/2.0/guides/smithy-cli/index.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy
  - type: Homebrew
    url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/homebrew-tap
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://smithy.io
- type: Documentation
  url: https://smithy.io/2.0/
- type: Specification
  url: https://smithy.io/2.0/spec/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://smithy.io/2.0/quickstart.html
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/smithy-lang
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy
- type: Examples
  url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/smithy-examples
- type: Awesome List
  url: https://github.com/smithy-lang/awesome-smithy
- type: AWS API Models
  url: https://github.com/aws/api-models-aws
- type: Blog
  url: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/developer/tag/smithy/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com