API Discovery: Standards, Publishing & Search Steven Willmott, Former CEO of 3scale (Acquired) ------ Check out our conferences at https://www.apidays.global/ Do you want to sponsor or talk at one of our conferences? https://apidays.typeform.com/to/ILJeAaV8 Learn more on APIscene, the global media made by the community for the community: https://www.apiscene.io Explore the API ecosystem with the API Landscape: https://apilandscape.apiscene.io/

1. API Discovery: Standards,
Publishing & Search
Kin Lane, API Evangelist
Steven Willmott, Timewarp Labs, Safe Intelligence, Piton Capital
V2 :: ALPHA!

2. API Spec Adoption FTW!!

3. API discovery is still really hard!
But…

4. Directories
Index &
Search

5. We browse because we can’t index and
search: the API web can’t be “crawled” in the
way the human readable web can

6. What if we could Index and Search?

7. We can : With your Help!
APIS.JSON
(http://apisjson.org)
APIs.IO
(http://apis.io)

8. API Owners:
Single location for API authoritative info,
Publish once, update everyone,
Better spec discipline,
Prepare for automated use (e.g. AI).

9. API Users:
Authoritative, trusted API specs,
Updated information,
Automated discovery,
Many search engines including personal
search.

10. DEMO!
Let’s Go!

11. So what is APIs.IO Trying to Achieve?
1. APIS.JSON
2. APIS.IO
…
3. Profit?
No :-). The objectives are:
1) Build the API Web
2) Better specs
3) Better discovery
4) Support automation
5) Ratings & rankings

12. We need you!
● API Owners: Try it, publish
APIs.JSON and list it
● Tool vendors: automate
apis.json creation?
● Repositories and search: -
pull our index, consider
adopting the format
● All: Give us feedback &
help make it better!

13. Speakeasy Pooh Bear Index : Level 4
OpenAPI Spec :: In Use & Discoverable

14. Shoutouts: Repositories

15. Shoutouts: APIS.JSON Tools/Info!
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/
restful-web-api/9781098106737/

16. What we plan to do next
1. Run it
2. Grow it
3. Evangelize
4. Update the spec
5. Open source the engine
6. Improve rating system

17. Links & Thanks
● https://apis.io/
● https://apis.io/add/
● https://developer.apis.io/
● https://www.openapis.org/
● https://apisjson.org/
● https://www.asyncapi.com/
● https://www.odata.org/
● https://graphql.org/
● https://grpc.io/docs/what-is-grpc/i
ntroduction/
● Thank you for inspiration …
Esp:
○ Nicolas Grenie
○ Bruno Pedro
○ Mike Amundsen
○ Darrel Miller
○ 3scale / Red Hat
○ OpenAPI
● Some AI was used in the
making of this presentation…

18. BTW: Check out OpenAPI Moonwalk & Get
Involved…
https://www.openapis.org/blog/2023/12/06/op
enapi-moonwalk-2024

19. Thank You!
Questions?
http://apis.io/

20. FAQ
● Who maintains the spec? Kin Lane, Steven Willmott, Nicolas Grenie - join us!
● Why not another format? Different specs could arise, we’re not set on APIS.JSON
but we needed something to start
● What license is the spec? MIT License
● Is it the search engine open source? Not, yet but we’re working on helping people
host their own + open sourcing.
● How do I submit? http://apis.io/add
● It didn’t get super big in 2012– why now? It got to 1,200+ APIs with no promotion
and there were far fewer active APIs. We can do this! Also… the number of APIs
matters much less that fiding quality API Spec information.
● What about behind the firewall? APIS.JSON can go anywhere you want, it won’t
be indexable by APIS.IO itself but it’s easy to imagine search engine
implementations for behind the firewall.