Good APIs Project

The adage “complex things tend to break and simple things tend to work” has been fairly readily applied to the creation of Web APIs. Although simplicity is not always the appropriate remedy, for most applications it is the preferred approach. APIs should be about the exposed data rather than application design.
Keep the specifications simple, especially when you are starting out.  Documenting what you plan to do will also help you avoid scope creep. Avoid having too many fields and too many method calls.  Offer simplicity, or options with simple or complex levels.

Developers should consider only adding API features if there is a provable extension use case. One approach might be to always ask “do we actually need to expose this via our API?”.

“A good API will be easy to use and hard to misuse.“