The API builder is an interface for managing an API, providing the building blocks you need to produce APIs in a consistent way across teams, managing the forward motion of an API across the API lifecycle.
There are a number of key capabilities of the API builder. possesses, helping centralize the control you have over the API lifecycle for each API, keeping teams on the same page.
- Overview - Ensuring that each API has an overview, providing the details teams need to onboard with what each API does.
- Repositories - Connecting source control repositories with each API, helping keep artifacts in sync with the software development lifecycle.
- Collection - Each API can possess one or many related collections, defining documentation, mock servers, and tests that can be used to shape the quality of each API.
- Definition - Enabling each API to have a machine-readable definition, providing a potential source of truth for an API that can be used across the API lifecycle.
- Automation - Connecting each API with CI/CD to help automate the test and other types of collections that are defined for each API.
- Performance - Connecting each API with APM solutions to help connect test and other collection runs with centralized performance management solutions.
- Deployments - Connecting each API with gateways used to deploy each API makes them available to consumers, providing visibility into the API runtime.
- Publish - Allowing APIs to be published for access by consumers, making the API, collections, and other information accessible via common distribution channels. The capabilities of the API builder is meant to go beyond just designing an API, opening up the entire API lifecycle for automation and orchestration by teams. The API builder provides a single place to manage API artifacts, but also orchestrate across source control, CI/CD, gateways, and APM using integrations.