Intro to API Documentation -- recording of presentation to STC Silicon Valley chapter on 11/20/2017
Video
Audio
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Slides
My slides are here: idratherbewriting.com/intro-to-api-documentation.
Presentation details
To view more details about the API doc presentation, see the STC Silicon Valley event details: November 20, 2017: Introduction to API Documentation.
Here’s the presentation description:
Introduction to API Documentation
In Silicon Valley, there’s no greater demand for tech writers than with API documentation roles. This is primarily because, unlike traditional documentation around user interfaces, APIs are primarily marketed through their documentation. As such, the API documentation has a huge impact on the success and adoption of the API.
At its core, REST API documentation focuses on requests and responses. You describe the various endpoints available, their methods, parameters, and other details, and you also document sample responses from the endpoints. To test the endpoints, you often make sample requests using tools such as cURL and Postman.
In this presentation, you’ll learn what a REST API is, the 8 essential sections in endpoint reference documentation, and how to test and analyze API requests. You can find more details in my API documentation course here.
Note that this presentation is geared towards beginners, not advanced gurus who have worked on API doc projects for a number of years.
Also, I don’t cover any new material that isn’t already in my API documentation course. Specifically, I briefly cover these first 3 sections from my API doc course:
To learn more about the Silicon Valley chapter of the STC, see http://www.stc-siliconvalley.org.
