J-Fall 2021: Vasco Veloso – API-First: from design to development

Organisation: Please excuse us for the inferior quality of the screen recording The API-first design approach treats APIs as first-class citizens. The entire system or project is built around the idea that components connect via APIs. The first step is, therefore, to design the APIs and their connections. However, there is a gap between the beautiful world of API specifications and the reality of agile development. This gap means that published API specifications are often incomplete, missing examples or simply outdated. The API specification meant to help developers can be a thorn in one’s side because keeping the specification in sync with its implementation is a manual process, tedious and prone to be forgotten during the rush to deliver. We show how this gap can be bridged effectively using the API specification as the only source of truth driving the API implementation with proven tools enabling automation. After this session, attendees will have all the tools they need to keep their API specifications from falling out of date ever again.