The API Evangelist vision of API governance is a much more bottom tactical approach which can be aligned with enterprise business or engineering strategy, as well as centralized or federated approaches, but always centers on education, literacy, and guidance around the basic building blocks teams will need to be successful, no matter what the strategy is in any given moment within an enterprise. These are the basic building blocks of API governance that are standards-based and separate from any single commercial service or open-source tooling that you will be using as part of API operations.
- JSON - Being able to work with JSON data format.
- YAML - Being able to work with YAML data format.
- Git - Fundamentals of Git repos and contributions.
- JSON Schema - Understanding schema validation.
- OpenAPI - Technical contract for describing APIs.
- Rules - Executable Spectral or Vacuum rules.
- JSON Path - Using a reference to YAML or JSON.
To be a productive and contributing member of API operations you should have a basic handle on these concepts. There is no reason you have to be an expert in any of these areas, but to understand what is happening when it comes to API governance you will need a fundamental awareness of each of these standards. These are the standards you will need to contribute to the producing and consuming of APIs, and how you can standardize APIs across teams. With a gap in any of these areas, you are likely missing a fundamental piece of how APIs are being defined, or not defined, that can make things significantly harder to move in the direction you want with your enterprise operations.
