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The GSA API Standards With A Working Prototype API And Portal

One way to help API developers understand API design is to provide them with a design guide, helping set a standard for how APIs should be designed across an organization or group. Another way to help developers follow best practices when it comes to API design is to provide them with a working example they can follow when developing their API(s). In my experience people learn API design best practices through following what they know–emulating what they see.

Hang on to that thought, cause now I’m going to blow your mind. Guess how API providers learn how to provide API design guide and working examples? By showcasing working examples of companies, institutions, and government agencies publishing API design guides, working APIs, and portal prototypes. So that other API providers can learn by example! BOOM! Mind blown. :-) An example of this can be found over at the General Service Administration (GSA), with their API standards guide, API prototype, and forkable API portal and documentation–complete with the essential API building blocks.

The GSA’s simple approach to providing a working example of their API standards is refreshing. They have taken an existing GSA data set and launched a prototype API, then they published the API in a complete, working API developer portal with all the essential building blocks of a basic API presence.

  • Getting Started - What you need to get started with the API.
  • Documentation - OpenAPI driven interactive API documentation.
  • Schema - A reference of the fields / schema used for API responses.
  • FAQ - Some basic questions about the API, and more importantly the API prototype.
  • Contact Info - Using Github issues for support, with an accompanying email.

The whole things runs on Github so it is forkable. What is great, is that they also have the source code for the API on Github, essentially providing a working, forkable representation of what is expected in the GSA API design guide. This is how you plant seeds for consistent API design across an organization. An API design guide setting standard, with a working example of what you would like to see as the finished product.

I’m really getting into this approach to defining the API conversation within an organization. I’m working with a handful of large organizations right now to develop API prototypes, evolve my current API portal definition, as well as working to influence the GSA’s approach. If you aren’t familiar with the General Services Administration (GSA), a significant portion of their mission is dedicated to delivering technology services to the over 430 departments, agencies, and sub-agencies in the federal government. The GSA API design guide, prototype, and portal provide a working example other agencies can follow when defining, designing, deploying, and managing their API presence–important stuff.