REST API DEVELOPMENT
APIs designed before they are built, because changing one after other software depends on it is the expensive kind of mistake.
DESIGN FIRST
Writing an endpoint is straightforward. Deciding what endpoints should exist, how resources relate, what responses contain, and how errors are communicated determines whether the API is pleasant or painful to work with for years.
Internal code can be refactored freely. A published API has clients depending on it: a mobile app in the store, a customer integration, or a partner system. Changing it breaks things you do not control. That is why the design comes first, in writing, before implementation.
THE PRINCIPLE
A public API is a contract. Write the contract before you commit clients to it.
WHAT I BUILD
Designed for the real consumers of the API, whether that is a product frontend, a mobile app, or another company.
Predictable interfaces for web frontends and single-page applications.
Authentication, sync, and data services for iOS and Android products.
Customer and partner APIs with versioning, authentication, and rate limiting.
Clear contracts between systems inside a wider product.
Safe receiving and delivery paths for event-driven integrations.
Readable specifications for APIs that are currently understood only by their code.
API STANDARDS
A good API is predictable enough that a developer can understand the next endpoint before reading the docs.
Naming, shapes, filtering, sorting, and pagination that do not change from route to route.
Correct HTTP semantics plus machine-readable and human-readable error context.
A planned route for change, with secure token and permission behaviour.
Every public surface protected from invalid data and avoidable abuse.
A maintained specification that stays in sync with the actual implementation.
Core tests, environments, and visibility into how the API behaves after release.
THE IMPLEMENTATION
The API design is written before implementation, then developed in Node.js, with NestJS where a larger API benefits from a clearer structure. Database design, query optimisation, authentication, validation, and tests are built into the service instead of treated as future fixes.
The result is documented with OpenAPI and deployed with the environments and monitoring required for another developer to work with it safely.
“An endpoint is only useful when the teams depending on it can trust it.”
COMMON QUESTIONS
The key API decisions to make before other software starts depending on it.
REST for most projects. GraphQL solves genuine problems on complex applications with many client types and adds complexity elsewhere.
Yes, by reading the implementation and producing an OpenAPI specification plus readable documentation.
Usually URL versioning because it is explicit and simple. The important part is planning before the first client integrates.
Yes, provided the schema supports it. If it does not, that is clear before implementation begins.
Yes, on anything publicly accessible.
Yes. The API and its application frontend can be scoped as one build.
Tell me what will consume it and what it needs to expose. You will get a written design before implementation starts.
