Today we have released the next major version 6.0 of Fusio. Fusio is an open source API management platform which helps to build APIs. In this post I like to talk about the new features of the 6.0 release. For all technical details you can take a look at the release post.
Connection designer
From the beginning Fusio was always a tool with a feature-set between an API gateway (like Kong or Tyk to route traffic to internal services and handle authorization etc.) and a backend (like Firebase or Supabase where a developer can build actual endpoints). The backend part was always a bit behind since you would need to use external tools i.e. like a database management tool or an HTTP client to build a backend. I think with the 6.0 version we have finally completed the backend feature-set so that it is now possible to build complete apps without leaving Fusio. This is possible through the new connection designer panels which we have implemented s.
The connection list contains external service which you want to use in your app, in this example we have a mysql database connection, a remote HTTP starwars API and a local cache dir folder on the filesystem. At each connection there is now a new terminal button right beside the edit button (which we call designer) which you can use for each connection. The button redirects you to the fitting designer for the connection type. In the following I will cover the three new designer types.
Database
The database designer contains an overview of all tables, it is possible to create and modify the schema of each table. It is also possible to view and edit rows on each table. Through this you can design and manage the database schema for your app.
HTTP
The HTTP designer provides a small HTTP client which can be used to invoke external APIs. This can be useful to test an API before actually implementing it in an action.
Filesystem
The Filesystem designer shows all files at the filesystem connection and provides also a way to upload new files.
Currently, we have also some connections like a Message-Queue or MongoDB connection which has no designer, but we plan to implement this in the future. The designer panels help also to close an important feature gap for a potential Fusio cloud service, so that developers can register and build complete apps directly within Fusio.
MCP (Model-Context-Protocol)
With Fusio we don't want to jump directly on the AI hype train, but we have looked at it carefully and found a great way how we can help LLMs to interact with Fusio, which also stays true to the self-hosted spirit so that we don't force our users to use external APIs. The solution is the integration of an MCP server. Through this you can now invoke all operations through an LLM. To integrate the MCP server we support the stdio transport through a simple command:
php bin/fusio mcp
We have also experimental support for the HTTP transport but this is disabled by default, so you need to activate this in the configuration, if
enabled you can use the /mcp endpoint. Through this MCP server you can invoke the internal backend operations via an LLM, which you can
use to build your API, but the same logic can be also used for the API which you have build with Fusio, thus we have created automatically an MCP
server for all our users. This feature is completely new but provides many exciting possibilities how you can use and integrate Fusio with LLMs.
OAuth2 authorization server
A great feature of Fusio are the dedicated apps which you can install through our marketplace. For example the developer app, which helps to build a developer portal or also the backend app which is used to manage your Fusio instance. All those apps are basically javascript apps which work with the Fusio API.
With this release we have implemented a new OAuth2 authorization server which automatically integrates with every app, this means that you automatically get a new OAuth2 login button s.
On click on the "Fusio" login button you get redirected to the internal OAuth2 authorization server.
There a user needs to authenticate and approve the authorization. The user has also the option to deselect specific scopes so that the app can access only specific parts of the API. This also helps our users to build complete new apps and use Fusio as authorization server. Since we also only follow the OAuth2 specification a user can easily later on swap the OAuth2 server with a different provider.
Conclusion
Personally I have the feeling that the 6.0 release marks a really great milestone for the Fusio project, which is now solid open source platform to build APIs. If you need to build an API or you have an API related task feel free to give Fusio a try. For more information you can take a look at our website and if you want support us you can also give us a star on GitHub.