Thread by @Rapid_API

What exactly is an API lifecycle.

Thread 🧵👇🏻

As APIs are essential in today's era, building and managing them becomes more crucial.

This is where API lifecycle management comes into play.

API lifecycle is the entire lifespan of any particular API from its planning phase to when it gets stale.

It covers several essential processes. Let's talk about it in a bit more detail.

An effective API lifecycle ensures the management of an API to make it more accessible and reusable.

A typical API lifecycle begins with the planning and designing phase.

API-first approach makes the process a little easier as the planning and designing are the first and foremost steps in the API-first approach.

1️⃣ Planning and Designing

The planning and Designing phase includes:

- Discovering the functionalities of an API 🔍
- What services the API should expose 📲
- Designing a standard document 📃

It's time to build; the second step may include building the actual API.

These steps are not standardized anywhere so that they may depend on your opted approach.

Let's say, you're following the code-first approach. In this case, the first step would be building the API directly.

But in the API-first approach, design and planning are crucial hence they are on step one.

2️⃣ Development Phase

This is where you build the API by writing code. API can be written in any programming language.

Most other vital factors are also handled in the development phase. For example,

- Error handling 🔁
- Authentication 🔐
- The rate-limiting factor 🕛

3️⃣ Testing Phase

Before publishing an API into production, it is necessary to test the API.

Both the development and the testing phase are iterative.

Any malfunctioning or errors will send the API back to the development phase to refine it.

The loop between the development and testing phases continues until the API serves the expected functionality.

Check out this thread if you're curious to know more about API testing.

https://twitter.com/Rapid_API/status/1437772300745646083?s=20

4️⃣ Deployment Phase

Once testing is done and API meets all the criteria, it's time to release the API for the outer world so the other developers can consume it.

It is advisable to release the well-written documentation along with API to increase its adoption.

5️⃣ Management

It's a process to keep track of everything associated with an API.

API management may include:

- Inspect whether they're updated 🔁
- API Analytics 📈
- Security 🔒

That's pretty much it for this thread.

Delivering an API is only beneficial if your API is discoverable and accessible.

RapidAPI handles this for you. Publish your API on RapidAPI Hub and make it accessible to over 3 million developers.

RapidAPI.com/hub?utm_source…