API Governance at Scale
Name
3639477.3639713.pdf
Size
844.66 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
b090c39e48c729b29f932db26afa58d6
Author(s)
Ahmad, Mak
Geewax, J. J.
Macvean, Andrew
Karger, David
Ma, Kwan-Liu
Date Issued
April 14, 2024
Publisher
ACM
Citation
Ahmad, Mak, Geewax, J. J., Macvean, Andrew, Karger, David and Ma, Kwan-Liu. 2024. "API Governance at Scale."
Version
Final published version
Abstract
API Governance, the process of applying standardized sets of policies and guardrails to the design and development of APIs, has only grown in importance and prominence given the continued growth in APIs being produced. In this paper, we present an Action Research style approach to investigate and understand the utility of a multi-faceted API Governance process being adopted inside Google. We first reflect on past research around API Governance, and then introduce three new components, 1. API Improvement Proposals (AIPs) the documented source of truth for API design rules, 2. API Linter, an automated analysis tool which checks for adherence to / violations of AIPs, and 3. API Readability, a program to educate and certify API design experts. These three components are designed to build upon pre-existing processes to scale and improve API design. Through a mixed-methods research strategy, containing both a survey and a series of interviews, we evaluate the utility of these approaches in supporting API Producers. Our research shows that API Producers have positive sentiment towards API Governance, validating the general direction of the program. Specifically, our study participants highlighted the positive impact of API Governance on the quality of the APIs they produced, via consistency in both the outcome and approach. This paper also discusses future research opportunities to enhance API Governance, specifically with regards to newer API Producers, who reported worse sentiment towards the program than their more experienced peers.
Description
ICSE-SEIP '24: Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice April 14–20, 2024, Lisbon, Portugal
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3639477.3639713
