diff --git a/hack/verify-federation-swagger-spec.sh b/hack/verify-federation-swagger-spec.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..0a33f2ffaac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hack/verify-federation-swagger-spec.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Copyright 2017 The Kubernetes Authors.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+set -o errexit
+set -o nounset
+set -o pipefail
+
+KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE}")/..
+source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/init.sh"
+
+kube::golang::setup_env
+
+make -C "${KUBE_ROOT}" WHAT=federation/cmd/federation-apiserver
+
+apiserver=$(kube::util::find-binary "federation-apiserver")
+
+SPECROOT="${KUBE_ROOT}/federation/apis/swagger-spec"
+TMP_SPECROOT="${KUBE_ROOT}/_tmp_federation/swagger-spec"
+_tmp="${KUBE_ROOT}/_tmp_federation"
+
+mkdir -p "${_tmp}"
+trap "rm -rf ${_tmp}" EXIT SIGINT
+cp -a "${SPECROOT}" "${TMP_SPECROOT}"
+
+"${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/update-federation-swagger-spec.sh"
+echo "diffing ${SPECROOT} against freshly generated federation swagger spec"
+ret=0
+diff -Naupr -I 'Auto generated by' "${SPECROOT}" "${TMP_SPECROOT}" || ret=$?
+cp -a ${TMP_SPECROOT} "${KUBE_ROOT}/federation/apis"
+if [[ $ret -eq 0 ]]
+then
+  echo "${SPECROOT} up to date."
+else
+  echo "${SPECROOT} is out of date. Please run hack/update-federation-swagger-spec.sh"
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+# ex: ts=2 sw=2 et filetype=sh