All APIs must demonstrate trustworthiness through transparent service level commitments, consistent deprecation policies, reliable performance, proper security, and clear legal terms, building the confidence consumers need to depend on APIs for critical business applications.
APIs Earn and Maintain Consumer Trust
Policies
SLA (Experience)
Require that every API published for consumers carries a clear service level agreement stating its uptime target, expected performance, support commitments, and what happens when we fall short. I p...
Deprecation (Lifecycle)
Require that any API or operation being retired is formally deprecated first, marked in the contract, and announced with a clear sunset date and migration guidance. I treat deprecation as a promise...
Breaking Changes (Lifecycle)
Require that breaking changes to a production API are identified, avoided where possible, and never shipped silently onto an existing version. I hold this line hard because a breaking change you di...
Transport (Security)
Require that every API is served exclusively over encrypted transport, so I want TLS enforced everywhere, plain HTTP either redirected or refused, weak protocols and ciphers disabled, and HSTS in p...
Privacy Policy
Publishing a privacy policy covering the producer and consumers of an API, as well as end-users of applications, adding to the legal resources that are available to 3rd party developers when puttin...
Terms of Service
Making sure that terms of service are front and center for API consumers, ensuring that the legal side of using API resources and capabilities in applications and integrations by 3rd party consumer...
Status
Making an API status page, monitoring reports, or other real-time updates regarding the uptime and availability of an API, providing current, but also the historical status of API, helping maintain...
Performance
Publishing details regarding the performance of APIs, complimenting status and uptime information, but drilling into more detail regarding speed, latency, and other performance related metrics that...
Experiences
Trust
Establish trust with API consumers will evolve and build over time, and is something that can be lost in a very short period of time. Trust will depend on other experiences like quality and reliabi...
Reliability
If an API isn’t reliable, consumers will eventually look for alternatives. Reliability starts with the platform and infrastructure where the API is deployed, but it also depends heavily on the pace...
Security
API security is a top priority for any enterprise, with even higher standards for externally available APIs. However, security doesn’t end with the APIs an enterprise produces—it also applies to co...
Stability
Stability is the experience of being able to depend on an API not breaking underneath you. It is built on thoughtful versioning, backward compatibility, clear change communication, and honoring com...
Legal
The legal aspects of producing and consuming APIs can quickly derail even the best-laid plans for API producers and disrupt the roadmaps of developers building applications and integrations. Terms ...
Communication
Consistent communication about the production and consumption of APIs is critical for effective enterprise governance. APIs are inherently difficult to visualize, making it essential to invest in m...
