Developer API Platform

Overview

Problem

Core users

• Developers integrating a business workflow API
• Internal platform teams exposing reusable services
• Support engineers debugging failed requests and webhooks
• Product teams tracking API adoption and usage

MVP scope

• API keys with sandbox and live environments
• Developer dashboard for keys, logs, webhook endpoints, and usage
• Request logs with status, latency, endpoint, and request ID
• Webhook endpoint registration and async event delivery
• Webhook retries with delivery status
• Usage tracking per organization and key
• One simple resource API to prove the platform pattern

Non-goals

• Do not build payment processing
• Do not generate SDKs in the first MVP
• Do not support complex marketplace OAuth flows initially
• Do not retain sensitive request bodies by default

Core system components

• REST API with versioned routes and consistent error objects
• Auth middleware for API key validation, scopes, and environment
• Dashboard for API keys, request logs, webhooks, usage, and docs
• Webhook event service and delivery worker
• Rate limiter and usage meter
• Audit log service for key rotation and dashboard actions
• Docs surface with examples and webhook signing instructions

Suggested architecture

• Frontend: dashboard for API keys, request logs, webhook setup, usage summaries, and documentation.
• Backend: REST API with auth middleware, request logging, rate limiting, event creation, webhook delivery, and audit logging.
• Database: Postgres tables for users, organizations, api_keys, events, webhook_endpoints, webhook_deliveries, request_logs, and usage_records.
• Queue: webhook delivery should be async through a queue with retries, exponential backoff, and dead-letter handling.
• External APIs: optional email or notification provider for alerting on repeated webhook failures.
• Deployment: web/API service plus worker process. The worker can scale separately once webhook volume grows.

Data model

• Organization: id, name, mode, createdAt
• ApiKey: id, organizationId, keyHash, prefix, environment, scopes, revokedAt
• RequestLog: id, organizationId, apiKeyId, method, path, status, latencyMs, requestId, createdAt
• Event: id, organizationId, type, payloadRef, createdAt
• WebhookEndpoint: id, organizationId, url, secretRef, enabledEvents, status
• WebhookDelivery: id, eventId, endpointId, status, attempts, lastStatusCode, nextAttemptAt
• UsageRecord: id, organizationId, apiKeyId, metric, quantity, periodStart

API design

• POST /v1/customers - create a sample resource
• GET /v1/customers/:id - retrieve a sample resource
• POST /v1/events - create an event for testing webhooks
• GET /v1/events - list events for the current organization
• POST /v1/webhook-endpoints - register a webhook endpoint
• GET /v1/request-logs - list recent API requests
• POST /v1/webhook-deliveries/:id/retry - manually retry a failed delivery

Key technical challenges

• Idempotency keys for safe retries
• Webhook retry scheduling and dead-letter behavior
• Signature verification that is easy for consumers to implement
• Rate limiting by key, organization, IP, and endpoint
• API versioning without breaking existing integrations
• Clear error objects with request IDs and docs links
• Request log storage without leaking secrets

Tradeoffs

• Use REST first because it makes logs, docs, retries, and examples straightforward.
• Store request metadata by default, but redact bodies unless explicitly enabled for debugging.
• Hash API keys and only show the full key once at creation.
• Build one resource API first so the platform mechanics can be tested end to end.

Security considerations

• Hash API keys and support key rotation.
• Sign webhook payloads with per-endpoint secrets.
• Enforce organization permissions in every dashboard route.
• Redact authorization headers and sensitive fields from logs.
• Rate-limit API keys and dashboard actions.
• Protect webhook retry tools from becoming an SSRF primitive.

Scaling path

• Partition logs and events by time or organization once volume grows.
• Move webhook deliveries to distributed workers.
• Add per-tenant limits, plan enforcement, and API versioning.
• Add SDK generation, docs search, and changelog tooling.
• Add organization-level audit exports and compliance retention policies.

Observability

• Request IDs on every API response and webhook delivery.
• Metrics for status code rate, p95 latency, webhook failure rate, and rate-limit hits.
• Audit logs for key creation, key revocation, endpoint changes, and replay actions.
• Dashboard views for request traces and webhook attempts.

Future features

• Generated SDKs
• API changelog and version migration guides
• Webhook replay from the dashboard
• Mock/sandbox data generator
• Usage-based billing hooks
• Organization-level compliance exports

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