Idea Details

@Kris Harrison - Thanks for the response. Since I am new, I have he luxry of not being bound to any specific APIs at the moment. Right now I am trying to find public data sources or APIs I can use to lookup medications and associated indications (I need to find possible diagnoses associated with any given medication.). While I appreciate the concept of APIs and public data stores such as the FDA's ODATA repository, I'm finding it difficult to locate something simple to use with Salesforce. With ODATA i've found that it requires an additional license, even if I'm not syncronizing private internal data, and with external services, I'm finding it hard to locate public APIs that include schemas.

I managed to create a swagger spec for NIH's API, but without the simplicity of being able to compare and lookup data at a field level, I'm finding it daunting to write both specs and flows/processes that can be effective.

I feel like I'm missing something in my approach. Are there any resources for sorting through and looking up public read-only data sources based on some combination of factors, like the presence of an existing swagger or OpenAPI schema? I'm trying to avoid much development because I am, at best, a tinkerer, when it comes to coding. My background is mostly in infrastructure, dealing more in hardware and networking as well as OS level an App support, with powershell and python scripting my only real programming touchpoints.

I'm willing to go learn anything, but like everyone else, I've only got so much time and time is the only resource I have. Our company is very small (about a dozen or so people), and I'm the only IT level person. :-)

Sorry for the long post, I tried to find a way to DM you instead but I couldn't locate it quickly.

@Jonathan Caldwell - the ability to register an OpenAPI 3.0 spec through External Services is currently in a closed pilot. If you'd like to participate, please have your account team nominate you for the pilot program. Your focus on 2.0 vs. 3.0 should be informed by the design of the specs for the APIs you're interested in exposing as actions within Salesforce via External Services. This is a useful blog that breaksdown the differences between the two versions: https://medium.com/@tgtshanika/open-api-3-0-vs-swagger-2-0-94a80f121022

does 3.0 work, or is it contingent on protocol? (or do we have to request v3?)

i'm new to this and trying to decide if i should learn 2.0 first or just use 3.0.

An "External Services API Schema Enhancements" pilot that includes initial support of OpenAPI 3.0 specs will be available in the Winter '21 release. To learn more, please see: https://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/winter21/release-notes/rn_forcecom_flow_extend_easily_add_actions.htm.

The Message "To enable Open API version 3 for your org, contact Salesforce Customer Support" is a Bug (as the Support told me). There is no way to usw OpenAPI 3.0 at the moment. 
Needed Feature!

Small update here, when I tried uploading an OpenApi 3.0 document into the External Services wizard I got the message:
"To enable Open API version 3 for your org, contact Salesforce Customer Support"

So it seems like Salesforce team is already working on this and we can try it out

Yes please, I tried using FastAPI and it wouldn't work with external services