Backward Compatibility

API Design Best Practices: Reliability and Usability A well designed API helps developers build features quickly and reliably. Reliability means the service behaves predictably, with stable contracts and strong error handling. Usability means clear guidance, intuitive endpoints, and examples that work in real projects. Together they reduce surprises for teams and improve long-term maintenance. Make contracts stable and explicit Use versioned endpoints or a clear version header to signal changes. Document deprecation policies and provide long enough notice. Keep response shapes stable; introduce new fields as optional to avoid breaking clients. Handle errors consistently ...

APIs and Middleware: Designing Connectors That Last Great connectors are not just code. They are contracts that teams trust, and they are patterns that survive changes in people, platforms, and data flows. When APIs and middleware are thoughtfully designed, they help apps evolve without breaking. When they are not, small changes become big risks. This guide offers practical ideas to build connectors that age well. Start with a stable contract. Define what must be present, what defaults apply, and how errors are returned. Publish a machine-readable contract (OpenAPI, JSON Schema) and treat it as the single source of truth. Encourage clients to rely on this contract rather than reverse-engineering behavior. A clear contract reduces surprises for both sides. ...

API Versioning and Backward Compatibility Versioning helps teams evolve APIs without breaking clients. A thoughtful plan reduces outages, supports partners, and improves developer experience. The goal is to keep old clients working while new features arrive. Why versioning matters APIs change over time. Without versioning, even small edits can break code, cause hard-to-trace errors, and force urgent client updates. Versioning provides a predictable path for changes and clear expectations for users. ...

API Design Best Practices for Interoperable Systems Interoperable systems rely on clear API contracts. When teams publish stable interfaces, partners can connect with confidence, reducing integration time and errors. The design choices you make today shape how well systems talk to each other tomorrow. Principles for Interoperable APIs Define a stable contract with well-documented schemas, preferably via OpenAPI. Use consistent nouns for resources and HTTP verbs for actions. Return predictable error objects and standard HTTP status codes. Plan for versioning from the start and communicate deprecation timelines. Apply authentication and authorization in a clear, reusable way. Favor backward compatibility and offer smooth migration paths when you evolve the API. Design Choices that Matter Choose standard media types and keep payloads simple and predictable. Model resources with stable identifiers and avoid breaking field names. Support pagination, filtering, and sorting with consistent parameters. Make operations idempotent where it matters and document side effects. Use clear field names, concise error messages, and helpful docs/examples. Versioning and Evolution Use semantic versioning and publish a changelog with each release. Provide a deprecation policy and a migration guide for developers. Feature flags and preview endpoints can help collaborators test changes safely. Error Handling and Semantics Return a single error envelope with code, message, and details. Map errors to appropriate HTTP status codes (400 for client errors, 500 for server faults). Avoid leaking internal stack traces; log them server-side only. Example of a consistent error object: { “error”: “InvalidParameter”, “message”: “The ‘userId’ parameter is required.”, “code”: 4001, “details”: [{“field”:“userId”,“issue”:“missing”}] } Documentation and Onboarding Auto-generate docs from your contracts and keep them in sync. Include quick start guides, tutorials, and real-world examples. Provide best-practice samples for common tasks and common error scenarios. Practical Examples A small, real-world contract helps teams start fast. A well-defined response for missing input makes it easier to diagnose issues across languages and platforms. ...