For legacy API documentation
APIScout helps you turn a working but poorly documented backend into an API inventory and OpenAPI baseline grounded in the implementation.
router.get("/accounts",
requireAuth, handler);
src/routes/accounts.ts:18
The problem
Legacy services frequently outlive their original documentation. Before you can safely onboard a team, expose an integration, or modernize a service, you need to understand the routes that actually exist.
Built for Backend developers, SaaS founders, and modernization teams who need to understand the implementation before they trust the documentation.
Why this happens
A customer integration depends on an endpoint absent from the API portal but still implemented in an older controller. Legacy services outlive the people who designed them; the source stays authoritative while the docs describe the original product.
Before moving routing middleware to a new framework version, the team needs a baseline of paths and methods to verify the migration did not silently drop behavior.
Years of patches land without an accompanying documentation pass. Eventually the docs describe a product that no longer matches the service clients actually call.
How APIScout solves it
APIScout runs inside VS Code and reads the backend source tree locally. It turns route discovery into an inspectable inventory, then exports OpenAPI when the API needs to move into documentation, testing, or security workflows.
Scan the legacy service where it runs locally.
Explore routes and jump from endpoints to source files.
Export OpenAPI as the starting point for documentation cleanup.
Benefits by role
Reduce code archaeology by building an API-oriented view of a service before trying to explain or change it.
Give maintainers, support, and integration owners a shared starting point for the contract that survives in code.
Legacy endpoints become visible for ownership and testing instead of being excluded because their documentation is incomplete.
In practice
Export a baseline before the migration branch is opened.
Refactoring before establishing an endpoint baseline removes your reference point.
Review whether every discovered legacy route is still intentional.
Old documentation is not proof legacy routes are gone.
Pair source-derived OpenAPI with integration tests for important compatibility paths.
Don't publish generated output without deciding what stays supported.
FAQ
No. It gives a concrete baseline for the current implementation. Contract design, versioning, and deprecation still require engineering judgment.
Before the first routing or framework changes, so later work can be compared against a known baseline.
No. APIScout works from the local source project, which helps when an older environment is difficult to exercise safely.
When APIScout is not enough
APIScout maps implemented routes, but cannot identify every client dependency or hidden runtime behavior. Use logs, consumer interviews, and compatibility tests before changing a legacy endpoint.
How ApyGuard extends the workflow
Legacy authorization logic usually predates the rules a team applies today. Once the export describes the surface that survived in code, import it into ApyGuard to test those older endpoints against current expectations instead of assuming someone reviewed them.
APIScout for VS Code
Install the free, local-first extension to discover backend endpoints, inspect their source context, and export an OpenAPI baseline when the workflow needs one.
Install APIScout — Free