Spectral website screenshot

Spectral

Spectral is an open-source API style guide enforcer and linter from Stoplight, providing a flexible JSON/YAML linting engine with built-in support for OpenAPI (v3.1, v3.0, v2.0), Arazzo v1.0, and AsyncAPI v2.x. Teams use Spectral to define, share, and enforce API design standards through custom rulesets, integrating into CI/CD pipelines, VS Code, and the Stoplight Platform for real-time style guide feedback.

Spectral publishes 1 API on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include API Design, API Linting, API Style Guide, AsyncAPI, and JSON Schema.

The Spectral catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Spectral’s developer surface includes documentation, GitHub presence, release notes, engineering blog, and 7 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
37.6/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 3/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
AccessFreemium
1 APIs
API DesignAPI LintingAPI Style GuideAsyncAPIJSON SchemaOpenAPIQuality Assurance

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
Composite quality — 37.6/100 · thin
Contract Quality 6.9 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 2.2 / 20
Commercial Clarity 7.9 / 20
Operational Transparency 6.8 / 13
Governance 7.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.9 / 10
Agent readiness — 3/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/spectral: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 1

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Spectral

Spectral is a flexible JSON/YAML linter and style guide enforcer with built-in support for OpenAPI (v3.1, v3.0, v2.0), Arazzo v1.0, and AsyncAPI v2.x. It enables teams to define...

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Spectral Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Spectral Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Spectral Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Spectral Context

9 classes · 10 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Spectral API Rules

5 rules · 4 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Spectral API Rules

4 rules · 2 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Spectral Ruleset

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Spectral Ruleset Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 1

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Spectral Openapi Ruleset Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Spectral Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation

Build 3

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHub
GitHub
 GitHubOrganization
GitHubOrganization
 NPMPackage
NPMPackage

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

ReleaseNotes
ReleaseNotes

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License
License

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn
LinkedIn
 Website
Website
 Blog
Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Contributing
Contributing

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: spectral
name: Spectral
description: Spectral is an open-source API style guide enforcer and linter from Stoplight, providing a flexible JSON/YAML
  linting engine with built-in support for OpenAPI (v3.1, v3.0, v2.0), Arazzo v1.0, and AsyncAPI v2.x. Teams use Spectral
  to define, share, and enforce API design standards through custom rulesets, integrating into CI/CD pipelines, VS Code, and
  the Stoplight Platform for real-time style guide feedback.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/spectral.png
tags:
- API Design
- API Linting
- API Style Guide
- AsyncAPI
- JSON Schema
- OpenAPI
- Quality Assurance
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/spectral/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-03-25'
modified: '2026-05-02'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: spectral:spectral
  name: Spectral
  description: Spectral is a flexible JSON/YAML linter and style guide enforcer with built-in support for OpenAPI (v3.1, v3.0,
    v2.0), Arazzo v1.0, and AsyncAPI v2.x. It enables teams to define custom rulesets to enforce naming conventions, security
    standards, and design consistency across API specifications at scale.
  humanURL: https://stoplight.io/open-source/spectral
  baseURL: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral
  tags:
  - API Design
  - API Linting
  - API Style Guide
  - AsyncAPI
  - JSON Schema
  - OpenAPI
  - Quality Assurance
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.stoplight.io/docs/spectral
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://docs.stoplight.io/docs/spectral/674b27b261c3c-overview
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral
  - type: NPMPackage
    url: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@stoplight/spectral-cli
  - type: ChangeLog
    url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/spectral/refs/heads/main/json-schema/spectral-ruleset-schema.json
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/spectral/refs/heads/main/json-structure/spectral-ruleset-structure.json
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/spectral/refs/heads/main/json-ld/spectral-context.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/spectral/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/spectral-vocabulary.yml
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/spectral-domain-security.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spectralcode
- type: Website
  url: https://stoplight.io/open-source/spectral
- type: Documentation
  url: https://docs.stoplight.io/docs/spectral
- type: GitHub
  url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/stoplightio
- type: NPMPackage
  url: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@stoplight/spectral-cli
- type: License
  url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral/blob/main/LICENSE
  x-license: Apache-2.0
- type: ReleaseNotes
  url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral/releases
- type: Contributing
  url: https://github.com/stoplightio/spectral/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: Integrations
  url: https://stoplight.io/integrations
- url: https://blog.stoplight.io/feed
  type: Blog
integrations:
- name: Azure
- name: GitHub
- name: GitLab
- name: Bitbucket
- name: Single sign-on
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com