Display SDK snippets | Fern Documentation

When you use Fern’s SDK Generator, you can automatically display SDK code snippets in your API Reference. These snippets are generated from your API definition examples and appear in a language selector dropdown, with cURL as the default option.

Dynamic snippets

By default, SDK snippets are static code examples. Alternatively, you can use dynamic SDK snippets that allow users to modify parameters and see code examples update in real time.

To use dynamic snippets, enable them in your docs.yml and then complete the setup instructions on this page.

Configuring SDK Snippets

To configure SDK snippets, you’ll need to name your SDKs in generators.yml and then reference that name in docs.yml.

Add examples to your API definition

In order to generate code snippets, Fern needs to read request examples from your API definition. If you’re using a Fern Definition, you can follow these instructions. If you’re using an OpenAPI Specification, you can follow these instructions.

Define a package name for your SDK(s)

Configure package names in your generators.yml file:

For Python, TypeScript, Ruby, and .NET/C#, add package-name: your-package-name to the output section.
For Go, add repository: your-organization/your-repository to the github section.

Fern supports SDK snippets for TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and .NET/C#. Contact us if you need support for more languages.

generators.yml

1 groups:
2   production:
3     generators:
4       - name: fernapi/fern-python-sdk
5         version: 4.31.0
6         output:
7           location: pypi
8           token: ${PYPI_TOKEN}
9           package-name: your-package-name # <--- add this field
10         ...
11      - name: fernapi/fern-typescript-node-sdk
12         version: 3.9.0
13         output:
14           location: npm
15           token: ${NPM_TOKEN}
16           package-name: your-package-name # <--- add this field
17      - name: fernapi/fern-ruby-sdk
18         version: 1.0.0-rc28
19         output:
20           location: rubygems
21           token: ${RUBYGEMS_TOKEN}
22           package-name: your-package-name # <--- add this field
23      - name: fernapi/fern-csharp-sdk
24         version: 2.4.3
25         output:
26           location: nuget
27           api-key: ${NUGET_API_KEY}
28           package-name: your-package-name # <--- add this field
29      - name: fernapi/fern-go-sdk
30         version: 1.13.14
31         github:
32           repository: your-organization/your-repository # <--- add this field
33         ...

Add the package name to your docs configuration

Add the package name for the corresponding SDK to your docs.yml file:

For Python, TypeScript, Ruby, and .NET/C#, your-package-name must match the your-package-name that you configured in your generators.yml file.
For Go, use the exact URL where the SDK repository is located, including the https://github.com/.

docs.yml

1 navigation:
2   - api: API Reference
3     snippets:
4       python: your-package-name  # <--- needs to match the naming in generators.yml
5       typescript: your-package-name # <--- needs to match the naming in generators.yml
6       ruby: your-package-name # <--- needs to match the naming in generators.yml
7       csharp: your-package-name # <--- needs to match the naming in generators.yml
8       go: https://github.com/your-organization/your-repository # <--- needs the https://github.com/ prefix

To display different package names for SDK users versus documentation users, use overrides files.

Specify SDK versions (optional)

You can specify which SDK version to use when generating code snippets.

docs.yml

1 navigation:
2   - api: API Reference
3     snippets:
4       python: 
5         package: your-package-name  # <--- needs to match the naming in generators.yml
6         version: your-version number # SDK version to use for snippets

Trigger generation

As the final step, trigger your docs generation by running fern generate --docs locally or in CI/CD (i.e., GitHub Actions). The SDK snippets will now appear via a dropdown!

Set default snippet language

To set the default snippet language, use the default-language key at the top indentation level of docs.yml.

docs.yml

1 default-language: typescript
2 
3 navigation:
4   - api: API Reference
5     snippets:
6       python: your-package-name 
7       typescript: your-package-name

Access via API

Pro and Enterprise feature

This feature is available only for the Pro and Enterprise plans. To get started, reach out to support@buildwithfern.com.

If you’d like to bring SDK snippets into your own documentation, you can use the Snippets API.

Merge.dev is an example of a Fern customer that uses the Snippets API to bring Python code samples into their API Reference.

Endpoint request and response snippets

Looking for information on generating API endpoint request and response snippets? See our documentation on Endpoint Request Snippets and Endpoint Response Snippets.