---
title: Code snippets
description: Five languages per operation, derived from the spec.
---

Every generated endpoint page carries request snippets in five languages, derived from the
OpenAPI document itself.

```json
{
  "snippets": {
    "languages": ["curl", "python-requests", "go-nethttp"],
    "default": "python-requests"
  }
}
```

<ParamField name="languages" type="string[]" default="all five">
  Which snippets render. Choose from `curl`, `fetch`, `python-requests`, `python-httpx`,
  `go-nethttp`.
</ParamField>

<ParamField name="default" type="string" default="curl">
  Which one starts selected. Must be a member of `languages` when both are set.
</ParamField>

Omit the block entirely and all five render with `curl` selected.

## How they are derived

Reed builds a request per operation from the spec — servers, path, query, header and
cookie parameters, security schemes, and the request-body example — and renders that one
request in each language. The snippets are therefore consistent with each other by
construction: they are five renderings of one derived request, not five hand-written
examples that can drift apart.

## Your own samples always win

An operation that already carries `x-codeSamples` keeps them. Reed never overwrites an
author-written sample, and injects its own into a derived copy of the spec rather than the
file on disk.

Use this when an operation needs a snippet that a mechanical derivation cannot produce —
one that shows pagination, or a realistic payload, or a required call ordering.

## Five languages, and why these five

`curl` is the universal fallback. `fetch` covers browser and Node JavaScript.
`python-requests` and `python-httpx` cover Python's two common clients. `go-nethttp`
covers Go's standard library.

This is a fixed set, not an extensible one. If your users' language is not here, the
honest answer is that Reed does not generate it — write the sample yourself as
`x-codeSamples` and it will be used verbatim.

## These are HTTP snippets, not SDK snippets

Every snippet calls the HTTP API directly. None of them imports a client library, because
Reed does not generate one. A snippet that reads `npm install @acme/sdk` for a package
nobody published would be documentation of something that does not exist.