Taking A Snapshot Of Just The Essential API Building Blocks Across My Research

My API industry research is constantly moving forward, shifting, and being added to--much like the space itself. As I work to update each of my research areas each week, my process involves adding any news I've curated, and changes to the companies who are doing things in the space, as well as add or remove any common building blocks I've identified. These building blocks are the common patterns I've identified by studying how API providers are operating, and what features API service providers are bringing to the table, for API providers to put to work.

This last fall, in preparation for my keynotes at Defrag and APIStrat, I pushed forward much of my research, flushing out more of the building blocks across 20+ of my research areas. As I was preparing for another big push forward with my research, I wanted to stop and take a snapshot of just what I'd consider to be the essential building blocks across the most mature areas of my API monitoring research.

I track almost 1000 stops along the modern API life cycle, but this snapshot represents what I'd consider to be a master list that API providers, and service providers should be considering as they design, develop, manage, and execute on almost 20 other areas of a modern API lifecycle. This snapshot is meant to be a guide to what I'm seeing in the space, which can be used as a checklist, in your own API strategy. I do not recommend every company do every thing listed in this document, but they are elements that you should be considering, and hopefully have a better understanding of.

Like my other guides, this one is in beta. I'm adding a couple new areas to my research in January that will impact this work, and I will also be exposing links to other companies, services, and resources that support each building block. You can download via a PDF version, or access via its own Github repository. If you see any mistakes, you are welcome to correct them there, and submit a pull request, or simply submit an issue to let me know, via the Github repo. I will roll any edits into the next edition.

While not as short as I'd hope it to be, I think the essential API building guide across these 20+ areas of my research provides an interesting snapshot of the space in 2016. Stay tuned...more to come.