[2] The Swagger API project was created in 2011 by Tony Tam, technical co-founder of the dictionary site Wordnik.

During the development of Wordnik's products, the need for automation of API documentation and client SDK generation became a major source of frustration.

Ramesh Pidikiti led implementation of the initial code generator and designer/developer Zeke Sikelianos coined the name Swagger.

While the meeting did not yield a concrete plan to do so, it put Swagger on the map as a critical innovation in the API space.

In November 2015, SmartBear Software, the company that maintained Swagger, announced that it was helping create a new organization, under the sponsorship of the Linux Foundation, called the OpenAPI Initiative.

[citation needed] Swagger's open-source tooling usage can be broken up into different use cases: development, interaction with APIs, and documentation.