APIs and Middleware: Designing Interfaces for Modern Systems

APIs and Middleware: Designing Interfaces for Modern Systems APIs act as the contract between services. Middleware sits between clients and internal systems, shaping requests, handling security, and routing data. A well-designed interface is easy to learn, stable over time, and friendly to future changes. This balance helps teams move faster and reduces friction when systems evolve. What makes a good API interface? Clear contracts: define what endpoints exist, required inputs, and expected outputs. Stable versioning: communicate changes gently, avoid breaking clients. Consistent error formats: predictable messages help clients recover quickly. Observability by default: trace requests, collect metrics, and surface failures. Choosing the right protocol is a key decision. REST is simple and widely supported; GraphQL can reduce over-fetching; gRPC shines with performance for internal services. Each choice affects how you design data shapes and error handling. Start with a concrete use case, then pick the protocol that fits. ...

September 22, 2025 · 2 min · 358 words

Modern Web Architectures: Microfrontends and Services

Modern Web Architectures: Microfrontends and Services In many teams, a single web app grows into a tangle of features and releases. Microfrontends and services help by giving each team ownership of a distinct part. This keeps work manageable and speeds up delivery, while still offering a cohesive user experience. What are microfrontends? They take the idea of microservices to the frontend. Each team owns a vertical slice of the UI, from data fetching to rendering. A product site might split into a catalog frontend, a cart frontend, and a checkout frontend. A lightweight shell app then loads these pieces and handles navigation so users see one smooth page. ...

September 21, 2025 · 2 min · 328 words