I specialize in helping organizations scale their API design and development processes and improve their API governance. With a background in software engineering, I now work full-time as an API consultant. I hope you find the books on this list enjoyable.
There are quite a few books on web API design, but James’ book is my favorite. I like how the book delves into not only the technology of web APIs but also James’ unique approach to API design—known as the Align Define Design Refine method (ADDR).
This methodical approach to API design begins by aligning the team on the business capabilities to be exposed by the API. Subsequently, the team can model and design the API operations that implement those capabilities using the techniques described in the book.
It is a valuable methodology to have in any software team's design toolbox. I highly recommend James’s book.
Principles of Web API Design brings together principles and processes to help you succeed across the entire API design lifecycle. Drawing on extensive in-the-trenches experience, leading consultant James Higginbotham helps you align every stakeholder on specific outcomes, design APIs that deliver value, and scale the design process from small teams to the entire organization.
Higginbotham helps you bring an "outside-in" perspective to API design to reflect the voices of customers and product teams, map requirements to specific and well-organized APIs, and choose the right API style for writing them. He walks through a real-world…
I've seen organizations struggle with adopting a business-led API strategy. A key part of doing this involves creating an effective operating model around how different business units or departments can own and deliver APIs effectively.
Luis' book addresses this challenge by presenting various operating models for APIs (centralized, federated, and platform-based) and offering guidance on creating a platform-based operating model. He addresses API architecture as well and I like his idea of API-Led architectures.
This is my go-to reference for organizations that wish to adopt APIs at scale and need to organize multiple teams and departments that own APIs. I found myself referencing it frequently on a project and highly recommend it.
A strategy and implementation guide for building, deploying, and managing APIs
Key Features
Comprehensive, end-to-end guide to business-driven enterprise APIs
Distills years of experience with API and microservice strategies
Provides detailed guidance on implementing API-led architectures in any businessBook Description
APIs are the cornerstone of modern, agile enterprise systems. They enable access to enterprise services from a wide variety of devices, act as a platform for innovation, and open completely new revenue streams.
Enterprise API Management shows how to define the right architecture, implement the right patterns, and define the right organization model for business-driven APIs.
This is the API design patterns book. I love this book because it provides a comprehensive set of well-described and easy-to-reference API design patterns. It establishes a common domain vocabulary for discussing APIs. Each pattern comes with a UML diagram that gives it a level of exactness and makes it quickly parseable. Even without reading the full description of a pattern, I can look at its UML diagram and promptly get its essence.
The book is divided into three parts. There are multiple reading paths through the book—so I didn’t need to read it end to end in a sequential order. After going through the introduction to understand the structure and layout of the book, I could jump to the patterns and use case examples most relevant to my needs. The book also comes with a companion website. This is an excellent work and a handy reference for all API designers.
Proven Patterns for Designing Evolvable High-Quality APIs--For Any Domain, Technology, or Platform
APIs enable breakthrough innovation and digital transformation in organizations and ecosystems of all kinds. To create user-friendly, reliable and well-performing APIs, architects, designers, and developers need expert design guidance. This practical guide cuts through the complexity of API conversations and their message contents, introducing comprehensive guidelines and heuristics for designing APIs sustainably and specifying them clearly, for whatever technologies or platforms you use.
In Patterns for API Design: Simplifying Integration with Loosely Coupled Message Exchanges, five expert architects and developers cover the entire API lifecycle, from launching projects…
I enjoyed this book because it provides a comprehensive treatment of various aspects of API management, including API strategy, architecture, design, documentation, versioning, security, testing, analytics, and governance.
The book effectively introduces and covers each of these areas. I am particularly impressed with the chapter on API governance and the governance model presented by the author. Incidentally, as part of some research I was doing, I found that the author's definition of API management is one of the most widely referenced in academic literature.
APIs are the enablers for a thriving ecosystem that can drive revenue growth and ROIs for any organization. This book will cover all relevant topics and trends that enterprise architects need to know to build and govern APIs as a product.
The second edition of the API Management builds on the foundation established in the first edition to cover recent advances in API development as well as the principles and best practices of building API as a product. It has been updated to cover the latest and emerging trends in API architecture, design, and implementation covering the use of gRPC,…
The book provides a modern approach to API architecture. In the section on API Traffic Management, I appreciated the discussion on API gateways and service meshes—their history, features, taxonomy, and common implementation pitfalls. It was great to see Kubernetes-related examples for API gateways and service meshes. I also liked the coverage of the API lifecycle, deployment, observability, security, and testing topics.
The book provides a very good architectural perspective, using C4 diagrams to explain the case studies and Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) to provide guidelines on questions to ask when making an API architecture decision. This is a great book on API architecture.
Most organizations with a web presence build and operate APIs; the doorway for customers to interact with the company's services. Designing, building, and managing these critical programs affect everyone in the organization, from engineers and product owners to C-suite executives. But the real challenge for developers and solution architects is creating an API platform from the ground up.
With this practical book, you'll learn strategies for building and testing REST APIs that use API gateways to combine offerings at the microservice level. Authors James Gough, Daniel Bryant, and Matthew Auburn demonstrate how simple additions to this infrastructure can help engineers…
Many organizations face challenges when trying to expand their API programs. They often struggle to balance the need for quick API delivery with maintaining high levels of consistency, security, and quality. In my book, I demonstrate how organizations can avoid this trade-off by automating their API design and delivery process using GitOps and DevOps practices.
The book provides numerous examples to illustrate how to implement API linting checks, breaking-change checks, conformance tests, and other API governance controls. Additionally, it outlines how to integrate these practices into the CI/CD pipeline to ensure that the organization consistently produces well-governed APIs.
