Platform Engineering Team/API Value Stream

API Platform Group: Platform Engineering Team members: Atieno Njira, Bill Pirkle, Wendy Quarshie Surbhi Gupta, Frances Goodwin, Alex Paskulin, Hugh Nowlan, Santiago Faci Backlog: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/api_platform/ Lead: Frantz Joseph, formerly Virginia Poundstone

API Platform Overview

The API Platform facilitates self-service application development using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Our goal is to make it easier to develop, access, and maintain open knowledge products through an API framework. The team will create solutions that are extensible, scalable, and reusable. These solutions will contribute to the platform evolution goals.

The API platform will include four key components:

• guidelines and tools for the full API Lifecycle,
• access to API services through an API gateway,
• access to information about our API services through an API Portal, and
• API management that provides transparency, consistency, and security.

API Lifecycle

An API Lifecycle has six main stages:

1. Design: This is a planning phase where the technical and business needs are reviewed, key requirements are formalized and design specifications are created. This process will apply best practices outlined in the API Design Guidelines (forthcoming).
2. Implementation: Developers code the API based on the key requirements and design specifications.
3. Testing: Once built, the API build will be tested for functionality, performance, and security. Testing will follow processes outlined in API Testing Practices (forthcoming).
4. Deployment: Once the API has been approved for deployment, a clear path outlined in API Deployment Process and, when applicable, API Version Control Strategy will be followed (both process documentations are forthcoming).
5. Management: A dynamic catalog of the various APIs, their versions, and the datasets and applications that they connect to will enable reliable governance. Observability of the usage of the APIs will ensure we understand and can pinpoint areas that need improvement.
6. Deprecation: Over time, some API may be retired in favor of offering an alternative improved service. This process must be intentional and not cause major service interruption.

Once completed, the Wikimedia Foundation API Guidelines, will provide API producers and API Admins a clear set of steps and principles that support platform independence, consistent APIs, and easier adoption, usability, and maintenance. This work is in the planning stage.

API Gateway

The API gateway is a proxy server that acts as a vetting process between clients requesting data and the servers that provide it. This intermediary communication improves performance through traffic control and load balancing, increases security, and enables the rapid development of products and services. The API Gateway provides protection from overuse and abuse, allows us to understand API usage so we can improve performance equity, and removes complexity for the API consumers. Our API gateway is in its alpha release. Technical documentation is available on Wikitech.

API Portal

The API Portal connects API producers with API consumers. People will be able to access our available range of APIs and get to know about their usage and capabilities.  It includes centrally located documentation about the available API services, versioning and depreciation information, and our API Lifecycle Guidelines. The API Portal also educates developers about how to use our API services with getting started guides, API integration details, and processes for generating client keys and configuring access. The API Portal also promotes available API services and open knowledge products made with our APIs through curated discovery pathways of highlights from our community of developers. Our API Portal is currently available as a proof of concept.

Key benefits for the open knowledge movement

Universal API Management

Once mature, the API Platform will be the hub for a centrally visible and scalable process for managing APIs across Wikimedia projects. This hub will create the conditions for:

• Knowledge Equity: equitably consumable, secured, and transparently maintained APIs
• Knowledge as a Service: knowledge proliferation both on wikis and off through programmatic consumption of content and stable content creation workflows
• Technical Contributor workflow efficiencies: accurate docs that are easy to discover, processes that are standardized, examples, SDKs, and tutorials that decrease the time to first hello world.

Roadmap

The API Platform team's work is planned on a living, actively maintained API Platform Roadmap Miro board.

The team's implementation work is tracked on the API Platform Roadmap Phabricator Board.

Current Major Initiatives & Projects

Phab workboard	Initiative (Project Pages)	Epics (Phab Tickets TKTK)	Status
RESTbase Sunsetting Project	RESTbase Deprecation	Remaining services research	in process
		Remaining services migration roadmap	in process
		Proton migration implementation	in testing
AQS 2.0 Roadmap	AQS 2.0	Device Analytics Implementation	on staging
		Page Analytics Implementation	in process
		Edit Analytics Implementation	up next
		Editor Analytics Implementation	up next
		Geo Analytics Implementation	up next
		Media Analytics Implementation	up next
API Gateway Roadmap	API Gateway	Routing solution for Lift Wing endpoints	on production
		RESTbase service migration gateway	in process
		Proton migration	on staging
		PCS migration	on staging
		Device Analytics New Service Deployment	on staging
API Portal Project	API Portal	Content Audit	backlog
		User Testing Proof of Concept	backlog
To Do	API Guidelines	Technical Decision Forum Process	in process
		Glossary	in process
Thumbor Migration Roadmap	Thumbor update and migration to K8S	Trouble shoot production blockers	blocked

Work Intake Process

The team meets throughout the week to review and triage incoming requests, bugs, or feature support on a rolling basis.

For questions or requests for consultations, you can create a task on the API Platform Consultation Phabricator board and tag it #api platform.

For work related to bugs, features or support on API Platform products and services, you can create a task on API Platform General Phabricator board, and assigned it to vpoundstone(Virginia Poundstone).

We also welcome questions and feedback on our talk page.

Demos & Artifacts

Note: You'll need to be signed in with your WMF account to view these videos.

2021/09/02

API Process & OAuth Flows

(Bill Pirkle, Nikki Nikkhoui)

Last updated: 2024-03-23 by AKlapper (WMF)