EngineeringStarter draft
Building Maintainable APIs with .NET
An outline for notes on keeping ASP.NET APIs readable, testable and easy to change over time.
2 min read
- dotnet
- csharp
- api-design
- testing
Starter draft. This note is an outline. Sections marked Needs input are waiting for real experience and have not been written yet.
This is a starter draft. It lays out the topics I want to cover on keeping .NET APIs maintainable, and marks every place where my own experience still has to go in.
What "maintainable" means here
A working definition makes the rest of the note easier to write. For an API, that tends to come down to how easily the next person can read it, change it and trust it.
Starting small
The smallest useful endpoint in ASP.NET Core is a few lines. This placeholder only shows how code looks in notes; it is not an example from a real project.
// Placeholder sketch. Replace with a real, tested example.
var app = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args).Build();
app.MapGet("/health", () => Results.Ok(new { status = "ok" }));
app.Run();
Contracts and change
- How request and response shapes are kept stable.
- How breaking changes are introduced, versioned and communicated.
- How the written contract and the code are kept in step.