The concepts worth getting right early: authentication, status codes, pagination, and how to read documentation without getting lost.
9 articles
No jargon and no prior knowledge assumed. What an API actually is, why they exist, the six words you need, and a first real request you can run in your browser in under a minute.
6 min read
Documentation is written in a fixed order that rarely matches the order you need it in. Here is the reading path that gets you a working request fastest, and the five sections that actually matter.
6 min read
Three places to put data in a request. Which one an API expects is not arbitrary, and getting it wrong produces confusing 404s and silently ignored filters.
7 min read
What an endpoint actually is, how base URL, path, version and resource fit together, and how to find the one you need in unfamiliar documentation.
7 min read
Three ways APIs split large results, why offset pagination silently skips records, and how to consume each one correctly.
6 min read
Four ways to build an API, what each is genuinely good at, and the honest answer about which one you should reach for by default.
7 min read
Four schemes, what each actually proves, where each goes wrong, and how to tell from documentation which one you are dealing with.
7 min read
You do not need all sixty. You need to know which codes mean retry, which mean fix your request, and which mean stop. Here is the working subset.
7 min read
The same request in three tools, with the parts that differ explained. Once you can read one, you can read all of them.
6 min read