The Design of Web APIs

Summary

The Design of Web APIs is a practical, example-packed guide to crafting extraordinary web APIs. Author Arnaud Lauret demonstrates fantastic design principles and techniques you can apply to both public and private web APIs.

Foreword by Kin Lane, The API Evangelist.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Technology

An API frees developers to integrate with an application without knowing its code-level details. Whether you’re using established standards like REST and OpenAPI or more recent approaches like GraphQL or gRPC, mastering API design is a superskill. It will make your web-facing services easier to consume and your clients—internal and external—happier.

About the Book

Drawing on author Arnaud Lauret’s many years of API design experience, this book teaches you how to gather requirements, how to balance business and technical goals, and how to adopt a consumer-first mindset. It teaches effective practices using numerous interesting examples.

What’s inside

• Characteristics of a well-designed API
• User-oriented and real-world APIs
• Secure APIs by design
• Evolving, documenting, and reviewing API designs

About the Reader

Written for developers with minimal experience building and consuming APIs.

About the Author

A software architect with extensive experience in the banking industry, Arnaud Lauret has spent 10 years using, designing, and building APIs. He blogs under the name of API Handyman and has created the API Stylebook website.

Table of Contents

PART 1 – Fundamentals of API design
1. What is API design?
2. Designing an API for its users
3. Designing a programming interface
4. Describing an API with an API description format

PART 2 – Usable API design
1. Designing a straightforward API
2. Designing a predictable API
3. Designing a concise and well-organized API

PART 3 – Contextual API design
1. Designing a secure API
2. Evolving an API design
3. Designing a network?efficient API
4. Designing an API in context
5. Documenting an API
6. Growing APIs