HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is the best example of api documentation you know?

12 points by sootn ↗ HN
I am researching documentation for api's. What makes a good documentation? What sections and articles are interesting for new and old users etc? Do you have any favorite documentation and why? Thanks

11 comments

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ndc
Examples examples examples. From the most common use cases to the less common. With annotations and links to the endpoint reference.
650REDHAIR
Examples, examples, examples.

I also love the Google Maps API. They're certainly in my top 5 for API documentation.

murtza
Twilio, Stripe, Parse, Sendgrid, Mailgun are examples of companies with good documentation.

Generally, I like to see a high-level overview of the API, authentication scheme, endpoints, sample request and response, error code explanations, and sample code coverage in multiple languages. I wrote a blog post on this topic:

http://murtza.org/creating-a-great-developer-experience/

RobSpectre
Much obliged for that. We still have a lot of work still here at Twilio to do around our documentation - appreciate the vote of confidence. Some of the stuff the DevX team is working on right now has me really excited.

Hope you'll share what you think when we release it.

sootn
Oo this is great everyone! I really like that sexy Stribe documentation. Thank you