When you are operating an API, you are always looking for new ways to be discovered. I study this aspect of operating APIs from the flip-side–how do I find new APIs, and stay in tune with what APIs are to? Historically we find APIs using ProgrammableWeb, Google, and Twitter, but increasingly Github is where I find the newest, coolest APIs. I do a lot of searching via Github for API related topics, but increasingly Github topics themselves are becoming more valuable within search engine indexes, making them an easy way to uncover interesting APIs.
I was profiling the market data API Alpha Vantage today, and one of the things I always do when I am profiling an API, is I conduct a Google, and then secondarily, a Github search for the APIs name. Interestingly, I found a list of Github Topics while Googling for Alpha Vantage API, uncovering some interesting SDKs, CLI, and other open source solutions that have been built on top of the financial data API. Showing the importance of operating your API on Github, but also working to define a set of standard Github Topic tags across all your projects, and helping encourage your API community to use the same set of tags, so that their projects will surface as well.
I consider Github to be the most important tool in an API providers toolbox these days. I know as an API analyst, it is where I learn the most about what is really going on. It is where I find the most meaningful signals that allow me to cut through the noise that exists on Google, Twitter, and other channels. Github isn’t just for code. As I mention regularly, 100% of my work as API Evangelist lives within hundreds of separate Github repositories. Sadly, I don’t spend as much time as I should tagging, and organizing projects into meaningful topic areas, but it is something I’m going to be investing in more. Conveniently, I’m doing a lot of profiling of APIs for my partner Streamdata.io, which involves establishing meaningful tags for use in defining real time data stream topics that consumers can subscribe to–making me think a little more about the role Github topics can play.
One of these days I will do a fresh roundup of the many ways in which Github can be used as part of API operations. I’m trying to curate and write stories about everything I come across while doing my work. The problem is there isn’t a single place I can send my readers to when it comes to applying this wealth of knowledge to their operations. The first step is probably to publish Github as its own research area on Github (mind blown), as I do with my other projects. It has definitely risen up in importance, and can stand on its own feet alongside the other areas of my work. Github plays a central role in almost every stop along the API life cycle, and deserves its own landing page when it comes to my API research, and priority when it comes to helping API providers understanding what they should be doing on the platform to help make their API operations more successful.
