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The API Book

This is the working repository for ‘The API’ book written by Sergey Konstantinov (email, Linkedin profile).

You may find .html, .epub or .pdf version of the book [NB: Warning! Work in progress] in the 'docs' folder, or read it online.

The book is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license, meaning in general that you're totally free to use this book in any manner while complying with two rules:

  • you're not getting commercial profit from the book;
  • you're not forgetting to mention the author.

See full license in LICENSE.md file or at Creative Commons Website.

Current State and the Roadmap

Right now Section I (‘API Design’) is finished. The Section is lacking readable schemes, I'll draw them later.

TODO for Section I:

  • double negations;
  • eventual consistency;
  • truthy default values;
  • partial updates;
  • errors order.

The book will contain two more sections.

  • Section II ‘Backwards Compatibility’ will cover growth issues. Major themes are:
    • major sources of problems leading to backwards compatibility breach;
    • interface decomposing allowing for third-party plugins and switching underlying technologies;
    • structuring public and private parts of your API;
    • versioning policies;
    • common mistakes.
  • Section III ‘API as a Product’ will be discussing non-technical issues:
    • what for the APIs exist;
    • monetizing APIs;
    • making sure your understand users' needs and collect proper metrics;
    • common practices, including AA issues and fraud problems;
    • organizing docs portal;
    • open source and community.

I also have more distant plans on adding two more subsections to Section I.

  • Section Ia ‘JSON HTTP APIs’:
    • the REST myth;
    • following HTTP spec, including those parts where you should not follow the spec;
    • best practices;
  • Section Ib ‘SDK Design’ covering more tricky issues of having proving UI alongside the API (no specific plan right now)

Translation

I will translate sections into English at the moment they're ready. Which means that Section I will be translated soon.

Contributing

I am accepting inquiries. Fill free to open issues.

I am NOT accepting pull requests introducing any new content, since I'm willing to be the only author and contributor. I would gratefully accept typo fixes, though.