I want to add a new type of API to our lexicon. There is a lot of talk about zombie APIs that were stood up a long time ago to support a single application or integration but are no longer in use, and there are Rogue APIs that are reversed engineered by consumers or stood up as part unsanctioned producers, and used to access the digital resources behind an application. I want to propose the haunted house API, which is similar to a zombie API, but it is the entire API portal and presence for a company—-except there is nobody home, and there are just hauntings of what used to be.
When I profile an API for inclusion in APIs.io I usually ping one or two of the communication channels available. I will email asking a question like where the Postman Collection is, and drop in on a forum asking if there is anyone working on producing or consuming an API that will come by and have a conversation on my podcast. Usually about the second or third time I come back to an API, and especially if I don’t hear back from an API, I’ll begin looking through the blog, social, GitHub, and other channels looking for signs of life. It is like walking through an abandoned or haunted house, where the tea cup is still on the table, but clearly been there for 2 years, and the last blog post was an optimistic view of things from three years ago.
The big difference from a haunted house API and a zombie API, is that a haunted house is a main entrance or significant part of your online presence, where a zombie API was probably just a side door for a single application or integration. As someone who has stood up a lot of haunted houses over the years I know the circumstances that lead to this happening, and empathize with folks. You built it and they didn’t come. I know, it sucks. At some point though I think you gotta sit down with the team and ask some hard questions about whether or not an API presence should go away, or maybe there is another approach to doing this alongside your regular work that would be something that won’t haunt you or your customers down the road.
