Chapter 7: Conceptual topics in API docs
- Overview
- API conceptual topics overview
- API product overviews
- API getting started tutorials
- API authentication and authorization
- API status and error codes
- API rate limiting and thresholds
- API quick reference
- API glossary
- API best practices
- Activity: Complete the SendGrid Getting Started tutorial
- Activity: Assess the conceptual content in your project
Topic 1 of 12
Conceptual topics that make up documentation include product overviews, getting started tutorials, authentication and authorization, status and error codes, rate limiting and thresholds, quick reference guides, glossaries, and best practices. These topics provide critical context for understanding and using the API beyond just the reference documentation. The chapter explores best practices for each topic, reasons why the topics are often neglected, and includes examples from API documentation sites. Activities guide you to evaluate these topics in an open source API project and decide which examples demonstrate best practices. The chapter emphasizes the importance of conceptual documentation in facilitating the user’s journey in understanding and adopting the API.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, agent skills, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my AI courses for more on the latest in AI and tech comm. If you're looking for info about documenting APIs, see my API documentation course.
If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me.
Finally, I want to note a couple of things. I usually write the first drafts of my posts myself and then use AI to improve accuracy, clarity, and detail in places, so my writing is a mix of human and AI. (Hopefully that's not too off-putting.) Also, the opinions I express on my blog are my own perspectives, not those of my employer.