Design and Build Great Web APIs

Creating Your Sequence Diagram

The second step in the API design method is to create a visual diagram that shows the general sequence of events. This is an important part of any good API design. While it doesn’t need to have too many details, such as URLs, HTTP methods, response formats, and so on, it does need to give both stakeholders and programmers a clear idea of what actions will be available and what data must be passed back and forth when using the API. Essentially, what’s needed is a visual representation of the workflow and internal cycles we’ve been working on over the last couple of chapters.

There are many ways to create the diagrams. For example, I created a really simple hand drawing that shows how several services interact. ...