Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
19 lines (12 loc) · 2.24 KB

consumer-observe.md

File metadata and controls

19 lines (12 loc) · 2.24 KB

Consumer - Observe

API consumers need to “see” API operations and learn how their API consumption, or the consumption across a community, influences their own applications and integrations. Observability is fast defining the difference between healthy API ecosystems, and not- so-healthy API communities, and healthy and not-so-healthy organizations.

Elements

  • Watches - Keeping track of the watches on workspaces, APIs, and collections to understand who is tuned into what is happening. Use watches as a metric for the number of consumers, contributors, and internal and external stakeholders who are tuned in.
  • Forks - Track who is forking repositories and collections, using the fork count as a metric for engagement and knowing who your consumers are. Track engagement via workspaces, repositories, and collections to learn how consumers are using your APIs.
  • Feedback - Engage with API producers and consumers, understanding the conversation is around each API or group of APIs. Observe discussions about digital resources and capabilities.
  • Notifications - Use in-app, email, or SMS notifications to engage with a platform and keep consumers part of the forward motion of an API, collecting metrics for observability.
  • Usage - Provide dashboards, reporting, and other visuals to help consumers understand their platform usage. These features will keep consumers engaged, helping them play an active part in the community and observe the activity that matters.

Use existing platform outputs to keep consumers informed, but also make their engagement more observable for producers and other consumers. That will help contribute to the overall health and viability of the ecosystem surrounding each API internally or within the external community. API consumers need all the help they can get with observability so that they can regularly see and understand what is happening with their integrations. APIs are abstract, and it can be difficult to see individual and community use. That’s where your help comes in.

While API consumers care a lot more about their own API consumption, usage and feedback by others in the community will also play a role in how they view a platform, and will influence the decisions they make moving forward.