Internet, industry, market, and government standards help make APIs more consistent, but also save time and money for both producer and consumer, while keeping APIs better aligned with existing industry areas of interoperability and reuse.
Standards
Strategies
APIs Are Aligned with Industry Using Standards
Before you go inventing a new schema or process, look at what already exists. I have watched so many teams reinvent the wheel when perfectly good standards were sitting right there waiting to be us...
APIs Are Interoperable Across Systems
Interoperability is what keeps you from getting locked into a corner. Standard media types, hypermedia links, well-known specifications--these are the building blocks that let consumers stitch mult...
Experiences
Access
I keep seeing teams struggle with getting consumers proper access to their APIs. The sign-up, authentication, and authorization process is where you lose people before they ever make their first AP...
Alignment
I see product and engineering teams talking past each other constantly when it comes to APIs. Without alignment on the why behind each API, you end up with technically sound resources that nobody a...
Automation
I keep shining a light on automation because it's the only way to scale API operations. When testing, validation, deployment, and governance are all manual, you're just adding human error and slowi...
Change
Change is the one constant across the API landscape, and I watch teams struggle with it every single day. If you aren't actively managing and communicating change across versions, deprecations, and...
Communication
I struggle with how little communication happens between the teams producing APIs and the people consuming them. Blogs, changelogs, roadmaps -- these are building blocks that most teams just skip, ...
Consistency
When I look across the API landscape, consistency is one of the biggest challenges I see. Every team does things differently, and the surface area of inconsistency just grows until governance becom...
Discovery
Discovery is the dark matter of the API landscape. Teams build APIs that already exist somewhere else, and consumers can't find the APIs they need. Without a catalog and proper metadata, you're jus...
Legal
The legal side of APIs is something most teams ignore until it bites them. Terms of service, privacy policies, licensing -- these building blocks matter, and the politics around API usage are only ...
Onboarding
I see teams dealing with massive friction during onboarding. If a consumer can't get from zero to their first successful API call in minutes, you've already lost them. Getting started guides, sandb...
Quality
I see the quality of APIs eroding across the landscape. Teams ship fast and never look back, but consumers feel every rough edge, every missing example, every inconsistent response. Quality is what...
Reliability
Reliability is where the rubber meets the road in the API landscape. If your APIs aren't up when consumers need them, and if new versions don't land smoothly, none of the other building blocks matter.
Security
Security is the area where I see the most gap between what teams think they have covered and what's actually happening. The surface area of APIs keeps growing, and most organizations aren't keeping...
Self-Service
Self-service is the goal I keep pushing teams toward. If a consumer can't find your API, sign up, get keys, and make their first call without emailing someone, you've created a bottleneck that will...
Simplicity
I am a big believer that the best APIs are the simple ones. When I see overly complex API designs, I know someone was thinking about their internal architecture instead of the consumer. Keep the su...