api-engineering
Best practices for designing and scaling robust APIs.
Install
mkdir -p .claude/skills/api-engineering && curl -L -o skill.zip "https://agentskills.codes/api/skills/download/14742" && unzip -o skill.zip -d .claude/skills/api-engineering && rm skill.zipInstalls to .claude/skills/api-engineering
Activation
This is the description your AI agent reads to decide when to run this skill — the better it matches your request, the more reliably it fires.
Guide to API design patterns, GraphQL, gRPC, API gateways, rate limiting, and versioning strategies.Key capabilities
- →Design REST APIs following principles
- →Configure API gateways like Kong or Ambassador
- →Implement API versioning strategies
- →Apply rate limiting and throttling
- →Secure APIs using OAuth2 or JWT
- →Design GraphQL schemas
How it works
This skill provides guidance on various API engineering topics, including design patterns, security, and scalability. It offers best practices and quick start checklists for common API tasks.
Inputs & outputs
When to use api-engineering
- →Design REST API
- →Implement rate limiting
- →Configure API versioning
About this skill
API Engineering
Guide to API design patterns, GraphQL, gRPC, API gateways, rate limiting, and versioning strategies.
Note: This is a foundational version. Community contributions welcome to expand coverage!
Purpose
Enable teams to design, build, and maintain robust, scalable APIs.
When to Use This Skill
Automatically activates when working on:
- REST API design and best practices
- GraphQL schema design
- gRPC service definition
- API gateway configuration (Kong, Ambassador)
- API versioning strategies
- Rate limiting and throttling
- API security (OAuth2, JWT)
Quick Start Checklist
- Define clear API contract (OpenAPI/GraphQL schema)
- Implement authentication/authorization
- Add rate limiting
- Version your API
- Document endpoints
- Implement error handling
- Add request validation
Resource Files
- rest-api-design.md - RESTful principles, resource modeling, HTTP methods
- graphql-patterns.md - Schema design, resolvers, N+1 problem, DataLoader
- api-versioning.md - URI versioning, header versioning, strategies
- rate-limiting.md - Token bucket, sliding window, distributed rate limiting
Best Practices
✅ Follow RESTful principles ✅ Use proper HTTP status codes ✅ Version your API from day one ✅ Implement rate limiting ✅ Validate input thoroughly ✅ Document with OpenAPI/GraphQL introspection ✅ Use API gateways for centralized concerns
Integration Points
- backend-dev-guidelines: API implementation
- documentation-as-code: API documentation
- devsecops: API security
- cloud-engineering: API Gateway services
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 SKILL ACTIVATED: api-engineering ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Resources: 4 foundational guides (community can expand!) Status: Basic coverage - contributions welcome
When not to use it
- →When the task does not involve API design or maintenance
- →When the task is not related to GraphQL, gRPC, or REST APIs
- →When the task is not about API security or scalability
Limitations
- →The skill is a foundational version
- →Coverage can be expanded with community contributions
How it compares
This skill provides structured guidance and best practices for API engineering, unlike a manual approach that might lack standardized patterns.
Compared to similar skills
api-engineering side by side with the closest alternatives in the catalog.
| Skill | Installs | Updated | Safety | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| api-engineering (this skill) | 0 | 9mo | No flags | Intermediate |
| api-design-principles | 72 | 2mo | No flags | Intermediate |
| nodejs-backend-patterns | 12 | 2mo | No flags | Intermediate |
| designing-apis | 1 | 6mo | No flags | Intermediate |
Try saying
Example prompts that trigger this skill in your AI assistant.
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