API Foundations
REST API Foundations for Production Teams
Design readable resources, version surfaces safely, and document contracts the way operators actually read them.
5 weeks Cohort Intermediate
Overview
This track treats an HTTP API like a long-lived product surface. You will model resources without leaking persistence details, choose pragmatic status codes, and shape pagination and error envelopes that stay stable across releases. Labs use OpenAPI-first workflows and mock servers so you can rehearse breaking changes before they reach a staging cluster.
What you practice
- Resource modeling workshops with peer review
- OpenAPI lint gates wired into a sample CI job
- Idempotent retry exercises with backoff tables
- Contract diff drills between two minor versions
- Observability hooks for request correlation identifiers
- Pagination patterns that avoid unbounded payloads
- Hands-on load script to spot hot endpoints early
Outcomes
- Ship a documented API slice with two coordinated clients
- Explain every 4xx and 5xx path your surface can emit
- Run a safe deprecation window with measurable adoption
FAQ
No. Week one uses local containers only. You can attach a personal sandbox later if you want closer parity.