Treating APIs as a product means prioritizing developer experience, not only by putting sensible and standard design into APIs themselves but also providing comprehensive documentation as well as smooth onboarding experiences. While OpenAPI (Swagger) specifications can effectively document API interfaces, onboarding remains a challenge. Developers need rapid access to working examples, with preconfigured authentication and realistic test data. With the maturing of API client tools (such as Postman, Bruno and Insomnia), we recommend treating API request collection as API product artifact. API request collections should be thoughtfully designed to guide developers through key workflows, helping them to understand the API's domain language and functionality with minimal effort. To keep collections up to date, we recommend storing them in a repository and integrating them into the API's release pipeline.
