From c6028742915f86847fcf6633b9814524d4e860d4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mike Jang <3287976+mjang@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:34:42 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Set up self-serve API process

---
 documentation/set-up-api-docs.md | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 documentation/set-up-api-docs.md

diff --git a/documentation/set-up-api-docs.md b/documentation/set-up-api-docs.md
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index 000000000..6ba4dc68c
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+++ b/documentation/set-up-api-docs.md
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+## Update API reference docs
+
+While anyone in the community can propose changes to our API reference docs, the relevant JSON files are built from code in F5 closed source repositories.
+
+Therefore, the audience for this document is limited to F5/NGINX employees. 
+
+At this time, the only published and supported API reference docs are available for NGINX One Console, at https://docs.nginx.com/nginx-one/api/api-reference-guide/.
+
+To set up API reference docs for NGINX One Console, follow these steps:
+
+1. Clone the documentation repository, https://github.com/nginx/documentation. 
+1. Set up Hugo on your system, as described in [Managing content with Hugo](/documentation/writing-hugo.md).
+1. Go to the apprpriate internal repository. Create the `one.json` file with the changes that you need.
+   - Make sure the changes on that `one.json` file are limited to those endpoints that are ready for the public.
+1. Set up a branch on your clone of the documentation repository.
+1. Copy your one.json file to that branch
+   - If you're updating the API for NGINX One Console, copy it to the following subdirectory: [static/nginx-one/api/](https://github.com/nginx/documentation/tree/feat-api-self-serve-process/static/nginx-one/api).
+1. Verify the changes on your local system. 
+   - Build the changes with the `make watch` command as described in [Managing content with Hugo](/documentation/writing-hugo.md).
+   - Review the result on your system at http://localhost:1313
+   - For the NGINX One API, the full URL is http://localhost:1313/nginx-one/api/api-reference-guide/
+1. To publish this change to the production NGINX documentation repository, push the changes from your branch. 
+1. Start a pull request on the documentation repository, https://github.com/nginx/documentation.
+1. Once the pull request is approved and merged, your new API reference is published.