Document an API before integration
Reliable integration requires more than one successful request. Describe data, errors, permissions and recovery after interruption. Documentation should let another person understand the contract without inheriting your personal access.
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Define the data contract
Describe required fields, types, units, missing values and dates. Provide an explicitly synthetic example without personal data. Document pagination, sorting and filtering.
Separate internal and supplier identifiers. Specify update and deletion rules. Retaining mappings avoids creating the same object at every import.
Limit and organise access
Identify permissions needed for each operation and separate trial and production environments. Documentation describes authentication mechanisms; it never contains usable keys.
Plan expiry, revocation and renewal through authorised organisational processes. Check what happens when permissions are missing or expired and who receives the incident.
Plan errors and retries
Distinguish validation errors, access refusal, request limits and outages. Define which operations can be retried without creating duplicate payments, messages or objects.
Adapt retries to the API contract and limit attempts. Keep progress records to resume unprocessed items. Logs should explain failure without exposing tokens or sensitive content.
Test a complete cycle
Test authorised creation, reading, updates and deletion using trial data. Also test missing values, duplicates, partial responses and outages. Compare results in both systems.
Document versions and the procedure for incompatible changes. Assign an integration owner, a monitoring point and evidence that data has been reconciled correctly.
A record to keep with the decision
| Item | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Data | Fields, units, missing values |
| Errors | Statuses, retries and repeatable operations |
| Acceptance | Test fixtures and reconciliation |
Frequently asked questions
Is a successful response sufficient?
No. Also check content, pagination and all expected objects. Technical success can hide an incomplete import.
Reference material
The practical checklist is an editorial synthesis to adapt to your service. It does not constitute a certification or an audit result.