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Swagger Editor

What is Swagger Editor?​

Swagger Editor is a browser-based editor for writing OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) API specifications in YAML or JSON, with live syntax validation and a preview of the rendered documentation as you type. Laradock builds it from the official swaggerapi/swagger-editor image.

Start Swagger Editor​

./laradock start swagger-editor

Open http://localhost:5151 (or your custom SWAGGER_EDITOR_PORT) and start writing your OpenAPI spec. swagger-editor/compose.yml doesn't mount any host folder into the container, so specs you write live in the browser's own storage (or wherever you manually export them to), not on disk in your project.

Stop Swagger Editor​

./laradock stop swagger-editor

To delete the container entirely (there's no data volume to worry about, since nothing on disk belongs to this service):

./laradock remove swagger-editor

Configuration​

All settings live in swagger-editor/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
SWAGGER_EDITOR_PORT5151Host-side port Swagger Editor is published on (host:8080, the editor listens on 8080 inside the container).

Importing and exporting your spec​

Since nothing is persisted to disk by Laradock, the spec you're editing only exists in the browser tab until you explicitly save it somewhere. Use the editor's own File menu to:

  • Import File or Import URL to load an existing spec (YAML or JSON) into the editor.
  • Download YAML / Download JSON to save your current spec back to your machine, or into your project's own repo so it's tracked in git.

Treat the running container as a scratchpad, not storage: always download before closing the tab or restarting the container.

Update to the latest image​

swagger-editor/Dockerfile builds from swaggerapi/swagger-editor:latest, so Docker will keep reusing whatever image layer you already have cached, it won't fetch a newer latest on its own. To pull the newest upstream release and rebuild:

docker pull swaggerapi/swagger-editor:latest
docker compose build --no-cache swagger-editor

Then start it again with the Start Swagger Editor command above.

Common issues​

  • Port already in use on your host. Another service (or another Laradock project) is already bound to 5151. Change SWAGGER_EDITOR_PORT in .env and restart with ./laradock restart swagger-editor.
  • Spec disappears after closing the browser tab or restarting the container. Nothing is persisted to your project files by default, since there's no volume mount in swagger-editor/compose.yml. Export/download your spec from the editor's UI regularly, or edit spec files in your own project and paste them in.
  • Blank page or connection refused. Give the container a few seconds after starting; check ./laradock logs swagger-editor for startup errors.

Want to render a finished spec as interactive docs instead of editing it? See Swagger UI. New to Laradock? Start at Getting Started.