What should be included in API documentation?

What should be included in API documentation?

Here are 5 of the best practices on how to write API documentation:

  1. Plan for your docs.
  2. Include fundamental sections.
  3. Be consistent and avoid jargon.
  4. Include interactive examples and other resources.
  5. Maintain your docs.

What is the best API documentation?

Great API and Developer Documentation Examples

  • Plaid shows developers what’s possible.
  • GitHub gets started quickly.
  • Twilio shares use cases.
  • APIMatic provides language-specific content.
  • Stripe makes it copy-paste easy.
  • SendGrid generates API references.
  • Dropbox lets developers interact with its API.

What is ReDoc API documentation?

Redoc is an open-source tool that generates API documentation from OpenAPI specifications. It’s one of the most powerful free docs tools in the industry, producing clean, customizable documentation with an attractive three-panel design. With support for Markdown, it allows you to write and style descriptions with ease.

What is API documentation used for?

API documentation is technical content that documents the API. It includes instructions on how to effectively use and integrate the API. It also provides updates on the API’s lifecycle such as new versions or retirement. Some aspects of API documentation can be generated automatically via Swagger or other documents.

What do you need to know about documenting an API?

Some APIs require you to include an API key in the request header, while other APIs require elaborate security due to the need to protect sensitive data, prove identity, and ensure the requests aren’t tampered with. In this section, you’ll learn more about authentication and authorization and what you should focus on in documentation.

What does it mean to have best practices in API?

API best practices can refer to any general advice your product team wants to communicate to developers about working with the API. There aren’t any set number of topics typically covered in API best practices. Instead, the best practices can be a catch-all title for content that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Who is the company that backs the Raml API?

RAML is backed by Mulesoft, a full-service, end-to-end API company. The endpoints indicate how you access the resource, while the method indicates the allowed interactions (such as GET, POST, or DELETE) with the resource.

Do you have to have an API key to use an API?

APIs vary in the way they authenticate users. Some APIs require you to include an API key in the request header, while other APIs require elaborate security due to the need to protect sensitive data, prove identity, and ensure the requests aren’t tampered with.

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