Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

referencing a json-schema from openapi3

Open
#90 15 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
openapi, python
Domain
api, backend

Research direction

Start with factories.py:SpecFactory:create and reproduce the failure using the provided test.yaml and test.json examples. Check how openapi_spec_validator handles the external $ref and review the linked OpenAPI Schema Object reference. Done means documenting or implementing the supported handling for this reference, including whether client-side validation can be bypassed.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

area/schema kind/enhancement spec/3.1

Hello,

I am currently in the process of creating a python based REST api. I wrote an openapi 3.0 interface that reference an external json-schema file using $ref: 'test.json' (openapiref)[https://github.com/OAI/OpenAPI-Specification/blob/master/versions/3.0.0.md#schemaObject] as I thought this is supposed to be possible.

Now I wanted to use openapi-core to validate requests and responses but I hit a problem which is that the validation of my openapi interface file does not go through because I get an error of type:

{'description': 'some external json', 'content': {'application/json': {'schema': {'$ref': './test.json', 'x-scope': ['file:///c:/Users/anderegg/Documents/dev/OSPARC/jsonschematest/testapi.yaml']}}}}
is not valid under any of the given schemas

Failed validating 'oneOf' in schema['properties']['paths']['patternProperties']['^/']['properties']['get']['properties']['responses']['properties']['default']:
    {'oneOf': [{'$ref': '#/definitions/response'},
               {'$ref': '#/definitions/reference'}]}

On instance['paths']['/']['get']['responses']['default']:
    {'content': {'application/json': {'schema': {'$ref': './test.json',
                                                 'x-scope': ['file:///c:/Users/anderegg/Documents/dev/OSPARC/jsonschematest/testapi.yaml']}}},
     'description': 'some external json'}

my example openapi interface looks like this:

# test.yaml
openapi: "3.0.0"
info:
  description: This is a test api
  version: 1.0.0
  title: Test API

paths:
  /:
    get:
      tags: 
        - users
      summary: Returns a nice greeting
      description: Returns a nice greeting
      operationId: root_get
      responses:
        default:
          description: some external json
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: './test.json'

and my example json-schema:

// test.json
{
    "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#",
    "title": "Test",
    "type": ["string", "null"],
    "format": "date-time"
}

Now I understand the problem comes from factories.py:SpecFactory:create where openapi_spec_validator is failing in validating my file because the ref does not follow #/something.

Am I wrong in thinking I can direclty reference a JSON schema?
If not, is it possible to disable the spec validation from client side? Or should I change something in the way I reference it?

Thanks for any input on this...

Dominant language
Python
Stars
368
Forks
140
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from python-openapi/openapi-core

All issues in python-openapi/openapi-core

Similar issues

More Python issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.