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API Design Roadmap¶

Roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/api-design

1. Learn the Basics¶

1.1 What are APIs
1.2 HTTP
1.2.1 HTTP Versions
1.2.2 HTTP Methods
1.2.3 HTTP Status Codes
1.2.4 HTTP Headers
1.2.5 Cookies
1.2.6 CORS
1.2.7 HTTP Caching
1.3 URL, Query & Path Parameters
1.4 Content Negotiation
1.5 Understand TCP / IP
1.6 Basics of DNS

2. Different API Styles¶

2.1 RESTful APIs
2.2 Simple JSON APIs
2.3 SOAP APIs
2.4 GraphQL APIs
2.5 gRPC APIs

3. Building JSON / RESTful APIs¶

3.1 REST Principles
3.2 URI Design
3.3 Versioning Strategies
3.4 Handling CRUD Operations
3.5 Pagination
3.6 Rate Limiting
3.7 Idempotency
3.8 HATEOAS
3.9 Error Handling (RFC 7807 - Problem Details for APIs)

4. API Authentication and Authorization¶

4.1 Authentication Methods¶

4.1.1 Basic Auth
4.1.2 Token Based Auth
4.1.3 JWT
4.1.4 OAuth 2.0
4.1.5 Session Based Auth

4.2 Authorization Methods¶

4.2.1 Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
4.2.2 Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC)

4.3 API Keys & Management¶

5. API Documentation Tools¶

5.1 Swagger / Open API
5.2 Postman
5.3 Readme.com
5.4 Stoplight

6. API Security¶

6.1 Common Vulnerabilities
6.2 Best Practices (API Security Best Practices)

7. API Performance¶

7.1 Performance Metrics
7.2 Caching Strategies
7.3 Load Balancing
7.4 Rate Limiting / Throttling
7.5 Profiling and Monitoring
7.6 Performance Testing
7.7 Error Handling / Retries
7.8 API Performance Best Practices

8. API Integration Patterns¶

8.1 Synchronous vs Asynchronous APIs
8.2 Event Driven Architecture
8.3 API Gateways
8.4 Microservices Architecture
8.5 Webhooks vs Polling
8.6 Batch Processing
8.7 Messaging Queues
8.7.1 Rabbit MQ
8.7.2 Kafka

9. API Testing¶

9.1 Unit Testing
9.2 Integration Testing
9.3 Functional Testing
9.4 Load Testing
9.5 Mocking APIs
9.6 Contract Testing

10. Real-time APIs¶

10.1 Web Sockets
10.2 Server Sent Events

11. API Lifecycle Management¶

12. Standards and Compliance¶

12.1 GDPR
12.2 CCPA
12.3 PCI DSS
12.4 HIPAA
12.5 PII