Buf Has a Free API — Modern Protobuf Tooling

Buf makes working with Protocol Buffers easy. Linting, breaking change detection, code generation, and a schema registry — all in one CLI.

What Is Buf?

Buf replaces protoc and makes Protobuf development modern. It catches breaking changes before they ship and generates code for any language.

Features:

• Protobuf linting
• Breaking change detection
• Code generation (any language)
• Buf Schema Registry (BSR)
• protoc replacement
• Free for open source

Quick Start

brew install bufbuild/buf/buf

# Init project
buf config init

# Lint
buf lint

# Check breaking changes
buf breaking --against .git#branch=main

# Generate code
buf generate

BSR API

# Search modules
curl https://buf.build/api/v1/search \
  -d '{"query":"googleapis"}'

# Get module
curl https://buf.build/api/v1/modules/buf.build/googleapis/googleapis

Use Cases

1. gRPC development — lint + generate client/server code
2. API governance — enforce schema standards
3. Breaking change CI — catch breaking changes in PRs
4. Code generation — Go, TypeScript, Python, Java, etc.
5. Schema registry — share .proto files across teams

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