Key Factors to Keep in Mind When Crafting a New API Service

API Development Checklist

1. Domain Alignment: Ensure that service boundaries align with business domains to achieve proper modularity.

2. Resilience Engineering: Implement circuit breakers, retries, and timeouts to handle network failures and facilitate recovery, going beyond just CAP theorem considerations.

3. API-First Development: Design and document APIs prior to implementation, utilizing OpenAPI/Swagger specifications.

4. Data Ownership: Each service should own its respective data domain. Consider employing event sourcing and CQRS patterns where appropriate.

5. Polyglot Architecture: Select the appropriate technology for each service’s specific needs while maintaining governance over technology choices.

6. Containerization: Package services using containers (Docker) to ensure consistent deployment across various environments.

7. Infrastructure as Code: Define infrastructure using tools such as Terraform, AWS CDK, or Pulumi.

8. CI/CD Pipeline: Implement automated testing, building, and deployment pipelines.

9. Observability Triad: Instrument services with:

– Distributed tracing (e.g., OpenTelemetry)

– Metrics (Prometheus-compatible)

– Structured logging with correlation IDs

10. Versioning Strategy: Consider utilizing header-based API versioning instead of embedding the version in URI paths.

11. API Standards: Choose standards like REST, GraphQL, or gRPC based on service requirements. Utilize request-response standards such as jsonapi.org.

12. Contract Testing: Employ tools like Pact for consumer-driven contract testing between services.

13. Health Checks and Readiness: Implement both liveness and readiness probes for container orchestration.

14. Graceful Termination: Properly handle SIGTERM signals, drain connections, and complete in-flight transactions.

15. Security: Ensure robust authentication and encryption are in place where necessary. Maintain a whitelist for data items that an API service will respond with to prevent data leaks.

16. Configuration Management: Externalize configuration through environment variables or configuration servers.

17. Service Discovery: Implement service discovery patterns suitable for dynamic environments.

18. Rate Limiting and Backpressure: Protect services from excessive load.

19. Naming Conventions: Use concise and meaningful codenames. Consider a naming scheme that reflects the domain’s purpose without being overly descriptive.

Happy Coding


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