Learn how to design web APIs that are a delight to use, deploy, and maintain.

An Application Programming Interface, or API, defines how a program exposes its operations, features, and capabilities to other programs—and the kind of data it can send and receive from them. Well-designed APIs are a joy to use. Bad APIs are a nightmare, with endless impact on system performance, developer productivity, and your end-user experience.

This fully revised second edition of The Design of Web APIs teaches you the principles and techniques you need to design easy-to-consume public and private web APIs. In it, you’ll learn how to:

• Analyze requirements to identify API capabilities for versatile, reusable designs
• Create HTTP-based REST APIs with CRUD, batch/bulk, or long operations
• Design interoperable, user-friendly APIs with seamless operations and data flow
• Ensure secure, efficient APIs while overcoming limitations and constraints
• Modify APIs without breaking compatibility, evaluating consequences carefully
• Future-proof your APIs and choose effective versioning strategies
• Document REST APIs using OpenAPI and JSON Schema for seamless implementation
• Streamline and standardize API design decisions with rationale and automation

Thousands of developers have followed renowned API expert Arnaud Lauret’s expert guidance to create APIs that are flexible, secure, and easily integrated. This new edition of the bestselling The Design of Web APIs covers the latest updates to the OpenAPI standard, along with insights you can apply to other API styles, such as GraphQL. You’ll quickly see how a well-designed and properly-documented API gives your users autonomy—and saves you from constant explanations and hand-holding.