API Engineering

Guide to API design patterns, GraphQL, gRPC, API gateways, rate limiting, and versioning strategies.

Note: This is a foundational version. Community contributions welcome to expand coverage!

Purpose

Enable teams to design, build, and maintain robust, scalable APIs.

When to Use This Skill

Automatically activates when working on:

• REST API design and best practices
• GraphQL schema design
• gRPC service definition
• API gateway configuration (Kong, Ambassador)
• API versioning strategies
• Rate limiting and throttling
• API security (OAuth2, JWT)

Quick Start Checklist

• Define clear API contract (OpenAPI/GraphQL schema)
• Implement authentication/authorization
• Add rate limiting
• Version your API
• Document endpoints
• Implement error handling
• Add request validation

Resource Files

• rest-api-design.md - RESTful principles, resource modeling, HTTP methods
• graphql-patterns.md - Schema design, resolvers, N+1 problem, DataLoader
• api-versioning.md - URI versioning, header versioning, strategies
• rate-limiting.md - Token bucket, sliding window, distributed rate limiting

Best Practices

✅ Follow RESTful principles ✅ Use proper HTTP status codes ✅ Version your API from day one ✅ Implement rate limiting ✅ Validate input thoroughly ✅ Document with OpenAPI/GraphQL introspection ✅ Use API gateways for centralized concerns

Integration Points

• backend-dev-guidelines: API implementation
• documentation-as-code: API documentation
• devsecops: API security
• cloud-engineering: API Gateway services

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Total Resources: 4 foundational guides (community can expand!) Status: Basic coverage - contributions welcome