Require that any property with a fixed set of allowed values declares those values as an enum in the schema, so status, type, and category fields cannot drift into a free-for-all of typos and invented strings. I have watched a single unconstrained status field accumulate a dozen near duplicate values across teams, and untangling that mess after the fact is painful. When the legal values live in the contract, consumers can code against them safely, tooling can validate them automatically, and everyone shares one vocabulary. Enums are a small act of design discipline that keeps our data clean and our meaning unambiguous.
Schema Property Enums (OpenAPI)
Strategies
Data Should Be Well-Defined and Validated
The schema for data that is sent and received via API should always be well-defined, possess a well-known shape, and always be validated, ensuring that digital resources and capabilities are what t...
Experiences
Quality
The quality of HTTP APIs powering an enterprise tends to decline as the number of ungoverned APIs grows across internal, partner, and public landscapes. Low-quality APIs lead to poor downstream exp...
Consistency
Achieving consistency in the design, delivery, and maintenance of HTTP APIs across an enterprise is a significant challenge—one that often complicates API operations. Small differences, such as var...
Contracts
Every API is a contract, and the contract experience is about how clearly the promises between provider and consumer are expressed. Technical contracts like OpenAPI and AsyncAPI describe what the A...
Lifecycle
design_services Design Design
Design is where the human experience of an API is won or lost. I work design-first, shaping the paths, schema, errors, and naming in the contract before development begins, so that consistency is b...
