This handbook distills years of experience building production APIs into a structured, opinionated guide.

A clean desk with a laptop and coffee

Whether you’re designing your first endpoint or refactoring a sprawling service, you’ll find practical patterns and real-world code examples throughout.

Notebook sketch

Who is this for?

  • Backend engineers designing new services
  • Full-stack developers who want to understand API design deeply
  • Tech leads reviewing API architecture decisions

System Architecture

Here is a high-level view of a typical API gateway pattern we will be building:

Mobile/Web Client

API Gateway

Auth Service

User Service

Content Service

User DB

Content DB

What you’ll learn

Each chapter builds on the previous, taking you from foundational concepts to production-ready patterns. Start from the beginning, or jump to the chapter you need.