All API contracts must have use cases that align the business reasons why an API is being delivered to consumers with the actual technical details of each API contract, ensuring that operations all have a valid business use case.
APIs Are Always Aligned with the Wider Enterprise
Policies
Use Cases
Use cases are the who, what, how, and why of an API. Documenting and maintaining them keeps the API aligned with real business needs rather than drifting into features nobody asked for.
Experiences
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...
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...
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...
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...