This document discusses strategies for scaling APIs as development teams grow. It recommends getting teams aligned on API design standards through a council and using linters to encourage adherence to standards. Centralizing the API gateway and analytics helps avoid duplicating work and provides consistent rate limiting and monitoring across APIs. The future may see more simplification of API design processes and centralized management of linters.

1. Scaling APIs

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3. About Me
Founder of the Box developer platform
Early writer for ProgrammableWeb
Managed these platforms
Mentor, advisor, consultant for other developer platforms & accelerators

4. The Magic of OpenAPI
1
API Designs
Tools: SwaggerHub, Stoplight,
Postman
Input: User Stories
Output: OpenAPI
3
Developer
Portal/Marketplace
Tools: Kong Dev Portal,
OpenChannel.io
Input: OpenAPI
Output: Developer Management site,
Sandbox
5
API Code
Tools: Kong, AWS Gateway,
WSO2
Input: OpenAPI
Output: Reverse Proxy and actual APIs
API Documentation
Tools: Redoc, Prism, APIMatic
Input: OpenAPI
Output: HTML docs, SDKs, Mock
Server
4
Monitoring
Tools: Moesif,
Kong Vitals
Input: OpenAPI
Output: HTML docs
2

5. Design-First APIs, and Beyond
Manage the
Developer
Community
- Developer Relationship
Management
- API Monitoring
Maintain & Iterate
Launch the API,
Developer
Experience
- Documentation
(Redoc, SwaggerHub)
- SDKs (SwaggerHub,
APImatic)
- Dev Portal (Kong, AWS
Dev Portal)
Launch
Build the API
- AWS API Gateway,
Kong, Apigee
Implement
Create Schema
Definition for
the API
- IDEs (Postman,
Insomnia)
- OpenAPI Schema
Design
Establish High
Level
Architecture
- Schema.org
- GraphQL Vs REST
Research
Determine Value
Points and Use
Cases
- Value Proposition
Canvas
- Business Model
Canvas
Identify

6. But as you grow, consistency is hard
Design First
API API API API

7. And this happened a lot recently

8. So how do we scale?
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Get teams aligned on standards
01
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Make it easy to share
03 ●
Make it easy to stick to standards
02 ●
Get teams aligned on standards
01 ●

9. Getting Alignment
Council Discussions… And Linters

10. Council Tips
Include more participants
No design requirements without representation
Agendas, work products from Council needed

11. What you need in Standards
Property Requirements Scoping requirements
Endpoint requirements Casing
Modeling requirements Strong typing
Parameter requirements Reusable properties, models and endpoints

12. “Enforce” vs “Encourage”
Make the developer experience better for your community, by making it easier
to build APIs, that will also be more consistent.

13. How to make this easier
Documentation Communication Tools

14. Sticking to Standards: Linters, Linters Everywhere
Freedom and responsibility
Swagger
updated
API
Quality
Review
APIs
Implemented
Test before
publishing
API docs &
SDKs
Publish
APIs
Implemented
TEI
Team
APIs Designed,
Swagger
defined,
validated
Simple
Tests Publish
In CI/CD
In Design

15. Sharing is Caring
Making it easy to reuse models

16. Make testing/validating easy
The Plan:
Reality:
SDKs
(Numerous unexpected bugs)

17. The gateway really helps
Don’t make teams think about rate limiting rules. Or let developers cheat
API API API API
DB1 DB2 DB3 DB4
10 10 10 100

18. The gateway really helps
Don’t make teams think about rate limiting rules. Or let developers cheat
API API API API
10 10
10 10
API Gateway

19. The gateway really helps
And with Analytics
Central Data Solution
API API API API
Custom Code Custom Code Custom Code Custom Code

20. 1 Gateway, 1 Analytics Solution
The gateway really helps
Central Data Solution
API API API API
One Export

21. What the future holds:
More API Design Simplification

22. What the future holds: Linter Management

23. Set Standards, Keep Coordinated
LINT