API-First Is a Strategy – What’s Your Tactical Approach?

In any competitive field, winning depends as much on an excellent strategy as it does on well-chosen and executed tactics. For those of us in modern software engineering, "API-first" earned the top spot in many tech leaders' minds as the go-to strategy for efficient innovation.

What the buzz neglected to acknowledge was the "how" of this glorious approach. What does API-first mean to the developers who are actually doing the work to make it real. Well, we have a theory that an "endpoint-first" approach is the critical tactical piece that has been missing from these conversations. Let's delve into it.

“Playing out of the back” is a widely used strategy in modern soccer. Teams try to build offensive possessions starting from the defensive third of the field. But if your defenders only practice playing long balls, they won’t be able to deliver on the vision. They must develop new tactics — specific, practical skills suited to the strategy.

Likewise on the API front—API-first can potentially be a winning strategy for API development, but teams often don’t achieve the strategic vision because they lack tactical support. While many are familiar with API-first, the next evolution of API development actually lies within the API endpoint approach. Endpoint-first is a set of tactics designed to bridge the gap between the strategic vision and API developers’ day-to-day needs.

In this article, we’ll get into the details and objectives of the API-first strategy and how the endpoint-first approach supports it and where it all fits into the landscape of API success.

What Is API-First and Why Does It Get So Much Attention?

Though APIs are only a quarter-century old, their scope and importance across business verticals have grown so much that talking about the API economy is common. The exceptionally rapid growth of this humble, but mighty, technology set off a corresponding explosion in management tools and business strategies as everyone seeks a faster time to market for API products.

API-first emerged as a way to raise awareness in non-technical business leadership about the technical needs of teams to make API-powered gains. This technology-agnostic approach, which uses familiar product-management terms, is easy to communicate to all stakeholders.

Done right, API-first is an approach that makes API development more intentional, efficient, and resilient.

What Are API-First Principles?

There are multiple definitions, but these are the core ideas:

1. Treat your API as a product: Your API is often the first way users interact with your company, so it should be a well-designed experience. Consider usability, product lifecycle, and use cases as you build and document your API.
2. Recognize that APIs have value for all parts of your business: APIs are essential to most organizations’ work and deserve the resources and attention that match their importance.
3. Design your API before implementing it: Don’t start coding until you have a clear vision. Ad hoc solutions rarely stand the test of time, and a good design helps avoid wasted effort.
4. Document before, during, and after development: Your API should ideally be self-descriptive and self-documenting so there’s no disparity between API documentation and reality.

These principles leave a big tactical gap for API development teams. Broad guidance can lead to conflicting interpretations and overlapping tools, even when the intent is sound.

Where Does API-First Fit In?

API-first is often discussed alongside several other API development and management strategies. Making a comparison can help you see the value of API-first and reveal some of the key practices:

1. API-first starts with gathering all business requirements and sharing a design with users. The lead time to start writing code can be long, but developers can be confident they know what users need. In contrast, code-first API programs begin with a handful of business requirements and immediately build endpoints. As the API scales, this leads to a guess-and-check approach to users’ needs.

2. API-first doesn’t require a specific design process. Design can be informal, and coding can start on one API part while design finishes on another. Two variations of this approach are design-first and contract-first. The former is process-focused, emphasizing creating a complete, final API design before writing any code; the latter prioritizes data formats, response types, and endpoint naming conventions. Agreeing on those details before writing code lets users and developers work in parallel without completing a design.

3. API-first can serve small internal teams or large enterprise APIs. It’s adaptable to product-focused teams and teams building private microsystem APIs. API-as-a-Product, on the other hand, is a business strategy built on top of design-first APIs. The design phase includes special attention to consumer demand, competitive advantage over other SaaS tools, and the product lifecycle.

4. API-first development is agnostic about how code gets written. It’s a philosophy and strategy that aims for high-quality, well-designed APIs but doesn’t say much about how developers should work daily. That’s why it can benefit from the more granular approach of endpoint-first API development — a practical, tactical approach to building APIs focused on the developers who write code and their basic unit of work, the API endpoint. The goal is to find tools and practices that let developers work efficiently by removing the design process from their way.

API-first is a strategic adaptation to the increasingly complex business roles of APIs, and it’s been very successful. However, it isn’t directly geared toward software development. It’s driven by business needs, not technical teams' needs. API-first leaves a lot to be desired for developers seeking practical support for their daily work, and endpoint-first can help fill that gap.

What Is Endpoint-First?

Developers need something between the broad-stroke vision of API-first approaches and the no-nonsense (but problem-prone) practice of code-first development. That’s where endpoint-first development comes in.

When developers write API code, the unit of work is a single API endpoint. They read requirements, outline a rough design, write functions, and debug code, one endpoint at a time.

That’s true whether the API is a short-lived internal microservice or an enterprise API product–whether the business requirements came from an informal brainstorming session or many rounds of design review. An ideal API management strategy helps developers create and be more efficient at the endpoint level, but how? Let’s explore.

Endpoint-First Principles

Endpoint-first development takes some of the core principles of API-first development and scales them down:

1. Ensure high-quality, valuable services at each endpoint: Users interact with your application one endpoint at a time, so even if you aren’t thinking of your API as a product, each endpoint needs to serve a distinct purpose for the API to deliver its goals.

2. Focus on the fundamentals: Your API as a whole can only be as robust as the components it’s built from (make sure you’re properly resourcing the pieces that will go into your API). Remember, endpoints are an API's essential unit, so they should receive the resources and attention that match their importance.

3. Apply design principles and code standards to every endpoint: Designs are only worthwhile if implemented consistently. Endpoint-first prioritizes automating boilerplate code and simplifying code reuse.

4. Build documentation into your tools: Automatically document each endpoint. The same OpenAPI description can support documentation, mock servers, and code generation.

A Tactical Approach to Continuous API Development

API-first is a collection of strategies, but to build high-quality APIs, you need tactics that directly address gaps and roadblocks in your developers’ workflow.

An endpoint-first approach aims to reduce friction for developers so they can write better code in less time, delivering your API in logical increments and in a continuous process. The approach can stand alone or be a tactical complement to API-first strategies.

Endpoint-first API development is a pragmatic approach in which you build endpoints one at a time to meet immediate needs or establish core functionality. Teams choose tools that support rapid iteration and allow fast concept development, like mock servers and boilerplate code generation. As a result, developers can spend more time writing code, iterating, and debugging their way to better solutions from the bottom up.

With endpoint-first, developers step back from the broad scope of design and product-management processes, but not without taking some lessons from API-first. The emphasis is still on writing high-quality, purposeful code that follows good design principles but is scoped to build your API.

Why API-First and Endpoint-First Are a Winning Pair

Endpoint-first is not a compromise or a replacement for API-first. The two can work together well, so choosing one doesn’t rule out the other. Applying endpoint-first tactics can mitigate many API-first strategy issues. Together, these approaches can help you achieve your API goals and give you a faster time to market.

Goals and Benefits of an API-First Strategy

Most API-first teams will have a lengthy collaborative design process. Before writing code, the conversation will include technical and non-technical stakeholders to define the API’s purpose, endpoints, and response structures.

The agreed-on design is often codified in an API contract, which allows API consumers to build their applications around the specifications. The API production developers work in parallel to build out the endpoints specified in the contract.

By agreeing on the design in advance and spelling out details in the contract, frontend and backend teams can work in tandem. Both teams can confidently reuse code blocks because all development proceeds from the contract. At least, that’s the goal.

When teams adopt an API-first approach, they’re hoping to reap some key benefits:

• Faster development cycles and better DevEx: With clear upfront requirements, developers can build quickly and deliver without much iteration or wasted effort.
• Reduced risk of failure: Communication and collaboration are built into the API-first approach reducing errors when they’re caught earlier in the development lifecycle. .
• More robust, resilient API code: A more intentional process and precise design requirements allow developers to plan more carefully and deliver higher-quality code.
• Improved scalability and smoother versioning: APIs built with an API-first approach perform better throughout their lifecycle.

In practice, many teams don’t realize these benefits. The reason is a mismatch between API-first's big-picture vision and the practical day-to-day development work.

Challenges of API-First Management

API-first approaches usually fail in one of two ways.

Sometimes, they’re ignored as developers continue doing what they’ve always done. This happens when there’s not enough buy-in — the value of the approach isn’t clear, so burdensome processes and clunky tools are abandoned.

More often, leadership makes a big push for API-first, requiring new processes, scheduling more meetings, and getting input from every possible stakeholder. This time investment often leads to an overspecified, overcomplicated design before practical issues are even identified. When developers on the front- or back end inevitably need to diverge even slightly from the contract to address issues, the process may be set back to the beginning, losing valuable time.

In both cases, API-first fails because it doesn’t deliver value to developers. Overhauling your API programs is a significant investment. If you don’t get the expected result, it’s important to ask why — but knowing how to improve the situation is even more critical. It starts with paying more attention to your API developers.

API-First Challenges Crumble with Endpoint-First Tactics

API teams trying to implement API-first can’t leave their developers with project management and design tools and expect a good result. A strategy is too high-level to be useful for the day-to-day work of writing code. Developers should have tactics and tools tailored to their needs and scoped to their unit of work.

API-first approaches have four main design and development stages. Incorporating endpoint-first tactics at each stage smooths and improves the process for development teams.

1. Define and design the API: This is the longest part of the process in an API-first approach. Developers work in short iteration cycles, repeatedly testing and refining an idea. The lengthy design process is frustrating and counterproductive. With modern tools that layer in automation, developers can start with a template spec that details endpoints, giving them a leg up for each subsequent step.

Endpoint-first tactics empower developers to complete a single endpoint's definition and design process in minutes vs. days. As part of this stage, API mocking can efficiently vet dependencies for a design before beginning to code. With little overhead, i.e., a simple API spec, developers can establish feasibility and share a proof of concept with stakeholders for feedback.

2. Develop an API style guide: A style guide lays out response formats, endpoint naming conventions, security requirements, and other technical details. It’s key to ensuring the final API is consistent and easy to use. However, it won't do much good if developers don’t follow the style guide or if two versions exist.

Endpoint-first tools can automate style guide enforcement. Developers are generally happy to follow conventions as long as they know them from the start. Automating enforcement in the developers' IDE or a shared API development tool works even better.

3. Automate API processes: API-first automation often focuses on the CI CD pipeline or linting and governance tools. Still, many API developers spend time writing repetitive boilerplate code. It’s boring, error-prone work, and an automated tool that can help catch errors before deployment.

What’s more, endpoint-first automates repetitive boilerplate code. The goal is to free up developers to work on the unique functionality at each endpoint.. Dedicated clean API code automation–as opposed to general AI searches–also reduces the overall error rate in code, so there’s less chance of a bug making it to production.

4. Set up API governance: API governance includes style guides and a broader range of policies and standards. Most API-first teams have a cross-disciplinary or cross-team group developing rules for data management, security, API versioning, and API documentation, among other concerns.

Endpoint-first tactics can make it easier to enforce governance because code is written and reviewed in smaller chunks. This process of moving “testing left” enables developers to identify kinks before endpoints are put live, where vulnerabilities can result in significant damage.

How a Next-Generation API Development Tool Supports Endpoint-First Development

Unlike most API management platforms and API point solutions, Blackbird was designed to empower developers with an endpoint-first approach that more effectively enables teams to deliver on API-first goals.

Automated API Design

Blackbird instantly lets developers create, edit, or use a popular existing using a conversational AI tool to identify requirements. The specification is automatically compatible with your other API code in Blackbird, eliminating repetitive work and avoiding a design sprint. Developers spend less time writing specs and checking docs and more time focused on endpoint code.

Instantly Shareable API Mocks

Developers can create in minutes with Blackbird, compared with the hours it can take to use other mocking tools. Devs can test new ideas independently and collaborate on their schedule, free from restrictions of other teams’ schedules. Facilitating the helps developers iterate faster on ideas so they can turn out higher-quality endpoint code more efficiently.

AI-Powered Clean API Codegen

Blackbird Code is an AI-powered code generation for your APIs in a host of languages. This functionality cuts out an enormous amount of manual boilerplate code searching and copy-pasting, reducing time spent and unwanted cognitive load, not to mention a common source of errors. Instead, those developers can build the unique endpoint functions of your API with fresh eyes and a solid foundation.

One-button Code Run

Blackbird lets you run your code in a without building containers to isolate issues in your code. Developers can access a realistic, temporary instance of your API through a publicly available URL to debug and iterate independently. Blackbird Code Run brings the same benefits of prototyping that mocking does in the design phase to the API coding phase. Devs can see the results of their work immediately, so they can stay focused on improving it before engaging infrastructure resources.

IDE Integrated Breakpoint Debugging

Unlike tools geared towards project managers and API designers, Blackbird incorporates familiar developer tools in a modular platform. Blackbird integrates directly with your IDE to allow painless debugging with breakpoints. Developers can experiment with their code more readily and trace errors quickly, leading to higher-quality API code from the first endpoint through the finished product.

Dedicated Deployments (no DevOps)

No one wants to crash production, and the Blackbird API can help developers avoid it. Teams can test a fully functional API and all of its endpoints in a containerized test environment at any time without risk to your production application. If those tests show your code isn’t prod-ready, it’s easy for devs to update it and repeat tests without reconfiguring or rebuilding.

Empower Developers with Blackbird

Endpoint-first API management restores control to the developers who build your APIs. As the scope of API programs has expanded, developers have become weighed down by the bloat of tools and management processes. Now, API teams see the need for a new approach that cuts through the excess and focuses on the basic building blocks.