GRCLibrary.ai

Standard

API Design Standard

This standard governs the design of application programming interfaces (APIs) produced by the organization. It complements the API security standard (which governs the security controls on APIs) by addressing the design choices that determine usability, longevity, and correctness.

Type
Standard
Version
0.0.4
Date
2026-07-02
Owner
Chief Technology Officer
Approving authority
Governance Library Maintainer
Classification
Public
Confidentiality
Public
Category
Architecture
Review frequency
Annual and upon material change to API tooling, transport, or interface conventions
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

Read the full text on GitHub (opens in a new tab)

Outline

  • 1. Purpose
  • 2. Scope
  • 3. Principles
  • 4. Style choice
  • 5. REST design conventions
  • 6. Contract and schema
  • 7. Identifiers
  • 8. Errors
  • 9. Versioning
  • 10. Time, units, and locale
  • 11. Documentation
  • 12. Pagination, filtering, and search
  • 13. Idempotency and consistency
  • 14. AI and agent-callable APIs
  • 15. Customer-facing APIs
  • 16. Governance
  • 17. Operating expectations
  • 18. Framework alignment
  • 19. Limitations

Frameworks it maps to

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