The Design of Everyday APIs

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.

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.

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