Well-documented and consistent API designs
Create API designs that are consistent, reusable, and grounded in business intent and shared standards.
Designing APIs is not just about naming endpoints. Good design ensures APIs are usable, consistent, and aligned with business and technical goals. Poor design leads to tight coupling, low reuse, and costly rework across teams.
Provide reusable design patterns, shared standards, and validation tools for API specifications. Ensure design decisions are consistent, reviewed early, and aligned with business intent.
Step1/8
A modeling tool to define and communicate the key entities and relationships in your domain, ensuring semantic consistency across APIs.
Define core entities, their attributes, and relationships to create a shared conceptual understanding across APIs.
Step2/8
Define API interactions, workflows, and expected responses to ensure a consistent API consumer experience.
Use the Interaction Canvas to define how consumers will interact with the API, ensuring it meets their needs and expectations.
Step3/8
Design APIs using RESTful principles, defining resources, verbs, and example requests and responses.
Apply REST design patterns to create consistent, reusable API contracts that are validated with stakeholders.
Step4/8
Design event-driven APIs by defining events, triggers, and processing logic.
Apply Event-driven design patterns to create consistent, reusable API contracts that are validated with stakeholders.
Step5/8
Design GraphQL APIs by defining types, queries, mutations, and subscriptions.
Apply GraphQL design patterns to create consistent, reusable API contracts that are validated with stakeholders.
Step6/8
A concise guide to API usability, discoverability, and consistency grounded in shared design rules and real consumer needs.
Use the design principles and API style guide to align your design decisions with shared rules and enable consistent audit validation.
Step7/8
A guideline advocating for API-first approaches using formal contracts (e.g., OpenAPI) to align stakeholders before development.
Apply contract-first or design-first approaches to capture and validate the API contract before implementation.
Step8/8
A lifecycle-based checklist to verify API readiness across design, delivery, publishing, and compliance using defined audit criteria and evidence.
Use the API Audit Checklist to ensure the API design meets functional and non-functional requirements, including security, performance, and compliance.
