There's No Reason to Write OpenAPI By Hand

Sometimes you see people complaining about OpenAPI (formerly Swagger), saying they don't want to to write out a whole bunch of YAML/JSON by hand. Other than disability, there's no reason you need to do that, and there hasn't be for a long time. Whether you pick code-first or design-first, you've got some options.

OpenAPI v3.1 and JSON Schema 2019-09

JSON Schema and OpenAPI will finally align completely in OpenAPI v3.1.

Easy to Follow Hypermedia Controls with Ketting

The Ketting library is a generic hypermedia client written in JavaScript. It supports an opinionated set of modern features REST services might have, including HAL, JSON:API, Web Linking (HTTP Link Header) and HTML5 links. Ketting v5.0 just released with support for Siren and other neat new features.

Automated Style Guides for REST, GraphQL and gRPC

Create API style guides using linting tools for any API paradigm. Avoid "API Governance" teams sitting there reviewing every single API change that comes through, and automate that menial task away to the bots.

OpenAPI Callbacks and Webhooks

What's the difference between a callback and a webhook, and which does OpenAPI support? Read on to find out the current status and upcoming changes for asynchronous and two-way APIs.

API Design-First vs Code First

With API descriptions rising in popularity, the main question I hear folks asking about is "API Design-first" or "code-first". This is a bit of a misleading question because these are not two unique things, there are a few variants.

GraphQL & Caching: The Elephant in the Room

Bringing nuance to the polarized subject of caching in GraphQL.

Testing API Client Applications

Got some code that talks to a Web API and want to make sure it works properly? Here's a bunch of options you can use to mock external dependencies.

Server-Side Validation with API Descriptions

Why waste a bunch of time duplicating validation rules in your application code and API description documents, then waste even more time trying to make sure these two disparate sources match up? Save a bunch of time and avoid mismatch bugs by using your API description as production code, so you have one source of truth, and your existing test suite can do the job of making sure things work.

REST and Hypermedia in 2019

A modern day look at the Richardson Maturity model, and insight into how the various layers of abstraction REST provides can help API Developers working in HTTP for various scenarios.

PKCE vs Proxy

It all comes down to what you can protect and where you redirect.

Creating Good API Errors in REST, GraphQL and gRPC

Dealing with the Happy Path™ in an API is pretty easy, but creating useful error messages can be tricky at first.

Resolving Overloaded Terms for API Specifications… Descriptions… Contract?

Specifications, Descriptions, Definitions, Spec Files, Contracts, ugh… they’re the same thing!

Caching is hard, draw me a picture

Another guest post from our friend Darrel Miller, this time explaining caching.

Organizing your AsyncAPI documents

Split your AsyncAPI documents into multiple files with $ref.

Optimizing for the Speed of Light

Written by Darrel Miller, on his blog Bizcoder.com

Taking a Timeout from Poor Performance

In a system-oriented architecture, it is crucial to communicate with other systems, sometimes synchronously. Broker patterns, proxies, etc., or even just a remote procedure being triggered synchronously, like confirming an email has been sent successfully.

Health Checks for REST/gRPC APIs: Kubernetes and Beyond

JSON API, OpenAPI and JSON Schema Working in Harmony

WeWork’s API Specification Workflow

One source of truth: API Specifications, and get docs, mocks, testing, and more.

Common Hypermedia Patterns with JSON Hyper-Schema

But there are a few objectively terrible ways to handle it.

Govern your APIs with Speccy

The last year has involved a lot of teaching engineers how to use OpenAPI, with the day job growing from a startup to a sizeable…

Surviving Deprecations to Resources and Properties on Other APIs

Deprecation, is the art of telling people to stop using that thing, because that thing is probably going away at some point. Even if there…

Picking the right API Paradigm

This article provides a decision flow diagram for selecting the “approach” to use for your next API.

What is API Rate Limiting All About?

Learn what rate limiting is all about, and how you can train your HTTP client code to handle being limited.

API Evolution for REST/HTTP APIs

API Evolution is making a comeback these days, and REST advocates have been begging folks to use it for years. Let's learn how.

Writing Documentation via Contract Testing

Part of my day job is trying to get folks to write API documentation, so the hordes of new developers joining the company on a weekly basis…

Getting started with JSON Hyper-Schema: Part 2

Let's learn a bit more about JSON HyperSchema, building on the foundation in part one, with resource representations, arbitrary request bodies, HTTP headers, and HTTP methods.

OpenAPI and JSON Schema Divergence

This article is going to explain OpenAPI and JSON Schema divergence, which I’ve been calling the subset/superset/sideset problem. There are some plans to fix it, but they're a way off.

Creating API Specifications from Bulls**t

So you are using design-first for new APIs, but what about old APIs? Play catchup with a few sneaky methods.

The Many Amazing Uses of JSON Schema: Client-side Validation

These days type systems are all the rage in APIs, so lets see how HTTP APIs can use JSON Schema for client-side validation.

Understanding RPC, REST and GraphQL

Every API is following some sort of paradigm, whether it knows it or not. Learn the differences, for when you talk to other APIs.

Getting started with JSON Hyper-Schema

JSON Hyper-Schema is a format for describing an API. You can automate a lot with a document that describes your API.

Ruby Users: Be Wary of Net::HTTP

We discovered some fairly interesting behaviors in Net::HTTP recently, and figured we better share them.

Keeping Documentation Honest

We've been talking a lot about the importance of documentation and API descriptions, Now let’s look at how we can ensure those descriptions are actually telling the truth!

Making the Most of JSON:API

If you absolutely positively have to use JSON:API for your API, here's how to make it work well for you.

Let's Stop Building APIs Around a Network Hack

JSON:API has been one of the most popular standards for API development for a while now. It was conceived in 2013, battled through some...

Speeding Up APIs/Apps/Smart Toasters with HTTP Response Caching

Caching is a huge topic, and there’s a lot of different types of caching. No one type of cache is going to suite all needs and cover…

API Versioning Has No "Right Way"

But there are a few objectively terrible ways to handle it.

PUT vs PATCH vs JSON-PATCH

What is the difference between them?

Turning Contracts into Beautiful Documentation

Continuing on the topic of contracts — metadata that describes your data — it makes sense to see what easy early wins you can make from…

Commit to API Contracts

When building and maintaining a Web API, it's surprisingly common for the "I" (interface) part to be overlooked. Often new functionality is…

Why Do People Dislike JSON?

People seem to be moaning about JSON when they really just are upset with unspecified data.

Partials: Happy Compromise Between Customization and Cacheability

With endpoint-based APIs (REST, RESTish, SOAP, RPC, AJAX-ish junk, etc.) you get to choose if you want increased likelihood of network…

You Might Not Need GraphQL

Do you like the look of GraphQL, but have an existing REST/RPC API that you don’t want to ditch? Here's how to get those benefits without rewriting it.

GraphQL vs REST: Caching

Outlining the approach the two API paradigms take to caching.

Representing State in REST and GraphQL

Learn how an API can become a state machine, with different actions appearing for resources in different states.

GraphQL vs REST: Overview

An objective overview and comparison of REST and GraphQL, despite it being rather strange to try and compare a paradigm and an implementation.