Review the OpenAPI contact email

Check the contact address and whether its mailbox can receive mail.

Description

OpenAPI info.contact.email identifies an address for API-related inquiries. Misspellings and domain errors can prevent contact, while valid syntax alone does not establish that the mailbox exists or receives mail.

Potential impact

API consumers or collaborators may be unable to reach support or may send an inquiry to the wrong recipient.

Remediation

Check the local part and domain, and provide an address that is actually monitored. Verify that the address displayed in the documentation matches the operational support channel.

Examples

The examples assume gmail.com was intended but gmail.c was entered instead. Do not judge every email address by the length of its top-level domain.

Before

json
{
  "openapi": "3.0.0",
  "info": {
    "title": "Simple API Overview",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "contact": {
      "name": "contact",
      "url": "https://www.google.com/",
      "email": "user@gmail.c"
    }
  },
  "paths": {
    "/": {
      "get": {
        "operationId": "listVersionsv2",
        "summary": "List API versions",
        "responses": {
          "200": {
            "description": "200 response",
            "content": {
              "application/json": {
                "examples": {
                  "foo": {
                    "value": {
                      "versions": [
                        {
                          "status": "CURRENT",
                          "updated": "2011-01-21T11:33:21Z",
                          "id": "v2.0",
                          "links": [
                            {
                              "href": "http://127.0.0.1:8774/v2/",
                              "rel": "self"
                            }
                          ]
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

After

json
{
  "openapi": "3.0.0",
  "info": {
    "title": "Simple API Overview",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "contact": {
      "name": "contact",
      "url": "https://www.google.com/",
      "email": "user@gmail.com"
    }
  },
  "paths": {
    "/": {
      "get": {
        "operationId": "listVersionsv2",
        "summary": "List API versions",
        "responses": {
          "200": {
            "description": "200 response",
            "content": {
              "application/json": {
                "examples": {
                  "foo": {
                    "value": {
                      "versions": [
                        {
                          "status": "CURRENT",
                          "updated": "2011-01-21T11:33:21Z",
                          "id": "v2.0",
                          "links": [
                            {
                              "href": "http://127.0.0.1:8774/v2/",
                              "rel": "self"
                            }
                          ]
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Correcting the domain does not establish that the example mailbox belongs to the support team. Replace it with the actual operational contact.

References