sota-api-design

name

sota-api-design

description

State-of-the-art API design and audit guidance (2026) covering REST/HTTP, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets/SSE/realtime, webhooks, versioning/evolution, and API security/operations. Use when designing or building any API surface (endpoints, schemas, protos, realtime channels, webhook senders/receivers) AND when auditing/reviewing existing APIs for correctness, evolvability, security, and operational robustness. Not for browser UI, rendering, or client-framework concerns — use sota-web-frameworks or sota-frontend-design. Trigger keywords: API, REST, GraphQL, gRPC, endpoint, websocket, SSE, realtime, WebRTC, webhook, versioning, OpenAPI, pagination, idempotency, rate limit, problem+json, protobuf, deprecation.

SOTA API Design & Audit

Purpose

Expert-level rules for building and auditing API surfaces: HTTP/REST semantics, GraphQL, gRPC/protobuf, realtime (WebSocket/SSE/WebTransport), webhooks, contract evolution, and the security/operational envelope around all of them. Rules are imperative with rationale and good/bad examples; every rules file ends with an audit checklist. Use the index table below to load only the files relevant to the task — do not read all files for a narrow question.

BUILD mode

When designing or implementing an API:

1. Pick the protocol deliberately. Read rules/04 §1 first if the choice (REST vs GraphQL vs gRPC vs realtime transport) is open. Default: gRPC service-to-service, REST at the edge, GraphQL only for multi-client shape diversity, SSE for server-push, WS only for true bidirectional.
2. Contract first. Write the OpenAPI/SDL/proto before handlers. Get the resource model, error shape (RFC 9457), pagination, and naming right in the spec — they are nearly impossible to fix later (rules/01, rules/02).
3. Design for a decade of additive change. String enums not booleans, RFC 3339 timestamps, opaque IDs, open enums, tolerant-reader contract, CI breaking-change diff from day one (rules/02).
4. Build the unhappy paths with the happy path: idempotency keys, 429 + Retry-After, timeout budgets, problem+json errors, size limits — these are features, not hardening passes (rules/01 §6, rules/07).
5. Realtime and webhooks are protocols, not endpoints. Specify auth, heartbeat, resume, ordering, backpressure, and close semantics (rules/05); signing, retries, SSRF egress controls (rules/06) before writing code.
6. Security envelope is part of the design: authn scheme per consumer type, per-principal rate limits, tenant isolation derived from credentials, audit logging (rules/07).
7. Before declaring done, run the relevant files' Audit checklists against your own design as a self-review.

AUDIT mode

When reviewing an existing API:

1. Identify the surfaces in scope (REST endpoints, GraphQL schema, protos, WS/SSE handlers, webhook senders/receivers, gateway config) and load the matching rules files.
2. Work through each file's Audit checklist against the actual code/spec — verify in code, don't trust docs or comments. Prefer reading: route definitions, middleware chains, error handlers, pagination queries, proto history, WS connection handlers, webhook dispatch code, gateway/limiter config.
3. Actively probe the classic gaps: missing object-level authz (BOLA), offset pagination on big tables, 200 {"error":…}, missing deadlines, unbounded WS send buffers, unsigned webhooks, SSRF in webhook egress, origin-reflection CORS, tenant ID taken from the request body.

Severity conventions

• Critical — exploitable security flaw or guaranteed data corruption/loss: missing object-level/tenant authz, unsigned or non-constant-time-verified webhooks, SSRF-able webhook egress, credential leakage (query strings/logs), origin-reflection CORS with credentials, reused proto field numbers, double-execution of payments (no idempotency on money writes).
• High — breaks clients or production under normal conditions: breaking change shipped without versioning/deprecation, no rate limiting on authed surface, missing deadlines/timeout hierarchy, unbounded pagination or request sizes, no WS backpressure/resume (silent data gaps), non-idempotent webhook consumers.
• Medium — erodes the contract or operability: wrong status codes, non-RFC 9457 error sprawl, offset pagination at scale, spec/implementation drift, no Sunset/Deprecation signaling, missing rate-limit headers, N+1 resolvers, closed response enums.
• Low — polish and convention: naming inconsistency, missing operationIds, missing preflight cache, suboptimal cache headers, missing pagination link hints.

Finding format

[SEVERITY] <one-line title>
Where: <file:line | endpoint | schema element>
Rule: <rules-file §section>
Issue: <what is wrong, with the observed evidence (code/HTTP exchange)>
Impact: <concrete consequence — who breaks, what leaks, what corrupts>
Fix: <specific change; example snippet/header/schema where load-bearing>

Order findings by severity; one finding per root cause; no speculative findings without evidence in code or spec.

Rules index

File	Read this when...
rules/01-rest-http-design.md	Designing/auditing REST endpoints: resource modeling, methods/status codes, cursor pagination, filtering, partial responses, idempotency keys, ETags/conditional requests, HATEOAS pragmatism, RFC 9457 errors, OpenAPI-first, contract testing.
rules/02-versioning-evolution.md	Changing an existing API, adding/removing fields, choosing URL vs header versioning, planning deprecation (Sunset/Deprecation headers), enum/schema evolution, tolerant readers, CI breaking-change gates.
rules/03-graphql.md	Any GraphQL work: schema/nullability/connections design, N+1 and dataloaders, depth/cost/alias limits, persisted-query allowlists, error channels (userErrors vs errors), resolver authz, when GraphQL is the wrong choice.
rules/04-grpc-protocols.md	gRPC/protobuf work or protocol selection: field-number/reserved evolution rules, deadlines and cancellation propagation, streaming patterns, rich error details, gRPC-Web/Connect, L7 load balancing, REST vs GraphQL vs gRPC decision table.
rules/05-realtime-websockets-sse.md	WebSocket/SSE/realtime features: transport choice (WS vs SSE vs WebTransport), upgrade auth & CSWSH, heartbeats, reconnect backoff + resume tokens, ordering/delivery guarantees, backpressure, close codes, SSE replay, pub/sub fanout scaling, presence; WebRTC server hardening (TURN relay abuse, DTLS-SRTP, signaling) when self-hosted.
rules/06-webhooks.md	Sending or receiving webhooks: HMAC signing + timestamp + rotation, replay protection, retry/backoff design, ordering caveats, idempotent consumers, outbox dispatch, reconciliation APIs, SSRF defenses for user-supplied URLs.
rules/07-security-operations.md	Cross-cutting security/ops on any API: authn scheme selection (keys/OAuth2/mTLS), rate limiting + 429/Retry-After, quotas, request size limits, timeout budgets, CORS, audit logging, multi-tenant isolation, cross-tenant testing.

Top-10 non-negotiables

1. Object-level authorization on every handler — derive tenant/ownership from the credential, never from the request; cross-tenant access returns a consistent 404. (rules/07 §1, §7)
2. Never 200 {"error":…} — correct status codes, single RFC 9457 problem+json error shape API-wide, machine-readable codes, trace ID, no internals leaked. (rules/01 §3, §9)
3. Cursor pagination with enforced max limit on every collection that can grow; stable sort with unique tiebreaker; no unbounded lists in REST or GraphQL. (rules/01 §4, rules/03 §2)
4. Idempotency for unsafe operations: Idempotency-Key with stored-response replay on anything that moves money or sends things; webhook consumers dedupe on event ID. (rules/01 §6, rules/06 §4)
5. Additive-only evolution, enforced by CI (oasdiff/buf breaking/schema check); clients ignore unknown fields; breaking changes go through the announce→Deprecation/Sunset→measure→410 pipeline. (rules/02)
6. Deadlines/timeouts everywhere, outer > inner, propagated and cancellable; long work is async (202 + status resource), never a long-held connection. (rules/04 §3, rules/07 §4)
7. Per-principal rate limits + quotas with 429, Retry-After, and RateLimit headers, enforced in a shared store; expensive operations cost-weighted. (rules/07 §2)
8. Realtime must resume: heartbeats, jittered reconnect backoff, sequence IDs + bounded replay buffer, explicit resume-failure → snapshot; bounded send queues with a defined slow-consumer policy. (rules/05 §2)
9. Webhooks signed and SSRF-proof: HMAC(timestamp + raw body) verified in constant time with replay window; senders block private/metadata IPs with resolve-pin-connect and follow no redirects. (rules/06 §2, §8)
10. Proto/GraphQL schema discipline: never reuse a proto field number (reserve removed ones), enum zero = UNSPECIFIED, GraphQL non-null only when guaranteed, every data-touching resolver behind a dataloader. (rules/04 §2, rules/03 §2–3)