Root Files in Projects in the Text Editor in API Designer

In API-specification projects that you create in the text editor and in API-fragment projects, one file is always designated as the "root file." In the Files pane, the root file is indicated with a rectangle that is labeled Root file. When you publish your project to Anypoint Exchange, the root file sets the context for the parser that validates the files in the project.

For example, suppose that a RAML API-specification project contains two specifications, each including (with the !include keyword) a different set of API fragments that are also in the project. When you publish the project to Exchange, all of the files in the project are published. However, Exchange needs to validate the specification and the files that it includes. Without a root file, Exchange cannot ascertain which file to parse first and which set of files to parse.

As another example, suppose that you want to publish an API-fragment project that contains several fragments, one of which is independent and the remaining files of which are a library fragment and its dependencies. If no root file is specified in the project, Exchange cannot parse the files correctly. In this case, you could set the independent fragment as the root file, indicating to Exchange that the file can be parsed alone. Alternatively, you could set the library file as the root file, indicating to Exchange that parsing should begin with that file and proceed to the dependent fragments.