Taking an efficient approach to organizing your available APIs makes it easier for consumers to find and adopt them. Whether your APIs are for internal use or public consumption, an API catalog can ensure they are discoverable. It can provide greater efficiency within your business, easy access management and superior monetization. Below, we’ll explain what an API catalog is, why you need one and how to create one.
What is an API catalog?
An API catalog is an organized library of available APIs. It is searchable by both humans and machines, meaning it needs to be highly organized, with APIs categorized to make them easy to find. Most organizations embed their API catalog within their developer portal.
API catalogs can be both private and public:
- A private API catalog contains APIs that are solely for use within your organization.
- A public API catalog contains APIs for external consumption.
In addition to detailing your APIs in your catalog, you can add documentation, service level agreements, tests, examples, security policies and other artefacts. These aid consumers in discovering your APIs and integrating and using them swiftly and efficiently.
Benefits of an API catalog
An API catalog is an important tool for the strategic management, promotion and sharing of your APIs. The headline benefits include improved discoverability, greater collaboration and enhanced governance. Several factors support this:
- Increased visibility: Private API catalogs can help internal teams discover APIs, overcoming lack of visibility between departments. This can reduce duplication of effort and enable greater efficiency. Public API catalogs also deliver increased visibility, enabling third-party consumers to connect with and consume APIs, supporting higher adoption rates and greater income.
- Organization and efficiency: APIs in your catalog can form the basis of organization-wide standards, supporting an organized, efficient approach to matters such as API security. An API catalog can also help your internal teams identify redundant code.
- Collaboration: For external consumers, the organization and efficiency that an API catalog delivers can foster developer communities that are helpful in shortening feedback loops between you and your consumers. This means you can enhance your support offering.
- Better security: It’s easy for a business to lose track of its APIs. Old versions that weren’t taken offline or decommissioned properly can represent serious security vulnerabilities, with forgotten zombie, rogue or shadow APIs with outdated security mechanisms providing unauthorized access to company data and systems. Maintaining a catalog of all APIs can combat this by ensuring everything is visible.
How to create an API catalog: three-step guide
It’s easy to create an API catalog. Simply follow these three steps.
Step 1: Gather APIs and documentation
The easiest way to create your API catalog is to use a service catalog API or an API management tool. This enables the programmatic creation and management of your catalog with minimal effort. Be sure to include documentation to underpin the usability of your APIs and make them discoverable.
Step 2: Set up the catalog structure
Setting up the catalog structure requires some thought. An API catalog can simply be a list of APIs on your website. However, embedding your catalog within your developer portal is more common.
Where this gets complicated is when you have more than one developer portal. For example, some businesses have separate private and public developer portals. Organizations may also have multiple API gateways. The API catalog structure needs to take this into account, with the catalog able to span multiple portals, gateways and so on.
You also need to ensure your catalog is both machine-searchable and human-searchable. Organizing your APIs by type can make a lot of sense, as can including APIs in multiple categories (when their functionality warrants this). You could also organize your APIs by access level, with one set for developers, another for admins and so on. Keep discoverability top of mind when making these structural decisions.
Step 3: Publish the catalog
Once your catalog is ready, you can publish it via your developer portal using your chosen API management tool.
API catalog best practices
Follow these best practices to ensure you get the best out of your API catalog:
- Do regular API audits: Keep your API catalog organized through regular audits to ensure your APIs are current and up to date.
- Include documentation and examples: Include documentation, examples and other artefacts to support the easy adoption and integration of your APIs. Doing so will make them easier to consume and provide a better developer experience.
- Make it easy to search and filter APIs: The easier it is to find your APIs, the more people are likely to adopt them. Ensure humans and machines can easily search your catalog and filter your list of APIs based on differing needs.
- Provide access control settings: Set access permissions based on different roles to ensure your APIs are only accessed by those with the appropriate permissions.
How to overcome common challenges with API catalogs
Creating an API catalog can present challenges:
- Inadequate documentation can hinder developers’ productivity and make your APIs harder to integrate. Allocate time and resources to keeping your documentation current.
- Security vulnerabilities can lead to data leaks and damage your organization’s reputation. Ensure all APIs in your catalog adhere to the latest security best practices, including authentication, authorization and encryption.
- Lack of community support can lead to frustration among consumers. Allocate sufficient resources to build an active, engaged community around your API catalog to boost its success. Encourage developers to share experiences and feedback to create a collaborative community.
Take care of these common challenges and you can enjoy a well-organised API catalog with benefits ranging from greater efficiency to higher income.
Next steps
A well-planned API catalog can bring efficiency to your API organization in a way that encourages greater discovery, adoption and monetization. You now have the knowledge needed to go ahead and create an API catalog. However, before you go ahead and publish everything, be sure to read our guide to exposing APIs securely. This will help ensure the APIs in your catalog deliver all the benefits they should, minus any security risks.
