Unify all referencing mechanisms in v3

[fmvilas]

Spin off from this conversation: https://github.com/asyncapi/spec/issues/663#issuecomment-1158094050.

Summary

We use different referencing mechanisms in the spec:

• By name in components: SecurityRequirement Object
• By name in servers: Channel.servers property
• By using $ref: pretty much everywhere

This issue is to discuss if we should unify all of them and how.

[fmvilas]

I'm in favor of using $ref everywhere possible. More details in https://github.com/asyncapi/spec/issues/663#issuecomment-1158094050.

[GreenRover]

I agree. Having it unique would be a good idea. $ref looks for me as the best solution as well.

Contra:

• $ref would allow illegal references

operations:
  sendUserSignedUp:
    action: send
    channel:
      $ref: '#/message/xyz' <--- should be /channel/ not /message/

But there for we have schema validator to point out mistakes like this.

Pro:

• It is unique we not need to be use to handle multiple ways to solve the same problem
• It is supported by most IDE. Your have jump marks and mouse over support
• Be more like brother project OpenAPI

[derberg]

let's do $ref but consistently everywhere

[jonaslagoni]

I agree let's use $ref everywhere. Side effect this way makes it easier for tooling as well.

$ref would allow illegal references

That would almost always be the case (when using references) but as this is always caught by validators and parsers, I am not sure we can even say it's a con 😄

[fmvilas]

/progress 60

PR is in place now: https://github.com/asyncapi/spec/pull/852.

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[jonaslagoni]

I cannot seem to find the changes in the parser, @fmvilas are you sure this change is complete?

I have the changes in for the spec https://github.com/asyncapi/spec/pull/852 and JSON Schema files https://github.com/asyncapi/spec-json-schemas/pull/316.

[fmvilas]

Yes, it's missing. I created an issue here: https://github.com/asyncapi/parser-js/issues/746. Thanks for the pointer!