Open API inherited example data

Question

I'm using OpenAPI 3.0 to define an API for a service I am building. I'm running into an issue reusing schema components inside other components. For example, I have a Note object which contains a Profile object of the person who created the note. This works as expected by referencing the Profile object using the $ref keyword. The issue is when showing the example there isn't any data for the profile, and if I place the ref in the example like below it includes the actual OpenAPI block of Profile not just the example data for the Profile component.

I'm wondering if there is a way of reusing components in other components and also reusing the example set on those components?

Ex:

FullNote:
  allOf:
    - $ref: '#/components/schemas/BaseNote'
    - type: object
      title: A single note response
      required:
      - id
      - dateCreated
      - profile
      properties:
        id:
          type: integer
          format: int32
        dateCreated:
          type: integer
          format: int64
        profile:
          type: object
          $ref: '#/components/schemas/Profile'
      example:
        id: 123456789
        dateCreated: 1509048083045
        profile:
          $ref: '#/components/schemas/Profile'

Answer 1

The example keyword (not to be confused with exampleS) does NOT support $ref. The whole example needs to be specified inline:

    FullNote:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/BaseNote'
        - type: object
          ...
          example:
            id: 123456789
            dateCreated: 1509048083045
            influencer:
              prop1: value1  # <----
              prop2: value2

Alternatively, you can use property-level examples - in this case tools like Swagger UI will build the schema example from property examples.

    FullNote:
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/BaseNote'
        - type: object
          ...
          properties:
            id:
              type: integer
              format: int32
              example: 123456789      # <----
            dateCreated:
              type: integer
              format: int64
              example: 1509048083045  # <----
            profile:
              # This property will use examples from the Profile schema
              $ref: '#/components/schemas/Profile'
    Profile:
      type: object
      properties:
        prop1:
          type: string
          example: value1   # <----