Tutorial
Technical Excellence

What designing and building APIs really is

The 4-minute mental model behind Designing and building APIs.

The idea in one line

On the surface, Designing and building APIs can look like a single technique you either know or you don't.

Why it's worth your time

Everything else a Delta does sits on top of solid engineering.

How to recognise it in the wild

1. Spot the moment. Notice when *designing and building APIs* is the move the situation is asking for — usually when it's tempting to skip it. 2. Name the goal. Say, in one sentence, what a good outcome looks like here. 3. See the core move. The heart of Designing and building APIs is simple: ship one clean, documented endpoint. 4. Know you're done. You've got it when this stops feeling like a technique and starts feeling like instinct.

What "good" looks like

  • Your code is simple to read and hard to break.
  • You design for the failure cases, not just the happy path.
  • You ship things that hold up in production.
Next: try the step-by-step tutorial to actually run the rep.