How to define enum mapping in OpenAPI?

Question

I am designing an API and I want to define an enum Severity which can have values LOW, MEDIUM or HIGH. Internally Severity gets stored as an integer so I want to map these to 2,1 and 0 respectively. Is there a way to do this in an OpenAPI definition? This is currently what I have for Severity:

 severity:
   type: string
   enum:
   - HIGH
   - MEDIUM
   - LOW

Answer 1

OpenAPI 3.1

OpenAPI 3.1 uses the latest JSON Schema, and the recommended way to annotate individual enum values in JSON Schema is to use oneOf+const instead of enum. This way you can specify both custom names (title) and descriptions for enum values.

Severity:
  type: integer
  oneOf:
  - title: HIGH
    const: 2
    description: An urgent problem
  - title: MEDIUM
    const: 1
  - title: LOW
    const: 0
    description: Can wait forever

Note: This schema still uses 1, 2, 3 (i.e. the const values) as the enum values in the actual request/response payload, but code generators can use the title to assign custom names to those values in client/server code, for example:

# Python
class Severity(Enum):
    HIGH = 2
    MEDIUM = 1
    LOW = 0

OpenAPI 3.0 and 2.0

These versions do not have a way to define custom names for enum values, but some tools provide x- extensions for this purpose. For example:

• OpenAPI Generator supports x-enum-varnames and x-enum-descriptions.

  openapi-typescript-codegen also supports these extensions.

  Severity:
    type: integer
    enum: [2, 1, 0]
    x-enum-varnames:
      - HIGH
      - MEDIUM
      - LOW
    x-enum-descriptions:
      - An urgent problem
      - A medium-priority problem
      - Can wait forever
  

• AutoRest and Kiota support x-ms-enum

• NSwag supports x-enumNames:

  Severity:
    type: integer
    enum: [2, 1, 0]
    x-enumNames: [HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW]
  

• Fern supports x-fern-enum

• Speakeasy supports x-speakeasy-enums

• APIMatic supports x-enum-elements

Check with your tooling vendors to see if they have a similar extension.