/api-integration-checklist

Run this checklist before finalising architecture for any project that fetches data from a third-party API. Catches integration blockers at design time instead of runtime.

Step 0: Verify endpoint documentation against live API

Before writing any code, confirm that every endpoint in the API docs (or api.md) actually works as documented. Documentation errors are the #1 source of wasted implementation cycles.

# For each documented endpoint, run a real curl and confirm:
# 1. Status 200 (or expected success code)
# 2. Parameters match exactly (name, casing, required vs optional)
# 3. Response shape matches documented schema

# Example — compare documented ?id= vs actual parameter name:
curl -si "https://api.example.com/search?id=abc123" | head -5
# vs
curl -si "https://api.example.com/search?i=abc123" | head -5