API Skills Discovery

Provides automatic access to comprehensive API design, authentication, and implementation skills.

When This Skill Activates

This skill auto-activates when you're working with:

• REST API design and implementation
• GraphQL schema design
• API authentication (JWT, OAuth 2.0, API keys, sessions)
• API authorization (RBAC, ABAC, permissions)
• Rate limiting and throttling
• API versioning strategies
• Error handling and validation
• HTTP methods, status codes, endpoints

Available Skills

Quick Reference

The API category contains 7 specialized skills:

1. rest-api-design - RESTful resource modeling, HTTP semantics, URL conventions
2. graphql-schema-design - GraphQL types, resolvers, N+1 problem prevention
3. api-authentication - JWT, OAuth 2.0, API keys, session management
4. api-authorization - RBAC, ABAC, policy engines, permission systems
5. api-rate-limiting - Token bucket, sliding window, rate limiting algorithms
6. api-versioning - API versioning, deprecation, backward compatibility
7. api-error-handling - RFC 7807 errors, validation, standardized responses

Load Full Category Details

For complete descriptions and workflows:

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/INDEX.md

This loads the full API category index with:

• Detailed skill descriptions
• Usage triggers for each skill
• Common workflow combinations
• Cross-references to related skills

Load Specific Skills

Load individual skills as needed:

# Core API design
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/rest-api-design.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/graphql-schema-design.md

# Security and access control
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authentication.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authorization.md

# Production hardening
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-rate-limiting.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-error-handling.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-versioning.md

Common Workflows

New REST API

Sequence: REST design → Authentication → Authorization

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/rest-api-design.md      # Resource modeling, HTTP methods
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authentication.md   # User authentication
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authorization.md    # Access control

New GraphQL API

Sequence: GraphQL schema → Authentication → Authorization

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/graphql-schema-design.md  # Schema design, resolvers
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authentication.md     # User authentication
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authorization.md      # Field-level permissions

API Hardening

Sequence: Rate limiting → Error handling → Versioning

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-rate-limiting.md    # Prevent abuse
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-error-handling.md   # Standardized errors
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-versioning.md       # Manage evolution

Complete API Stack

Full implementation from scratch:

# 1. Design phase
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/rest-api-design.md

# 2. Security phase
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authentication.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authorization.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-rate-limiting.md

# 3. Production readiness
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-error-handling.md
cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-versioning.md

Skill Selection Guide

Choose REST API skills when:

• Building traditional web services
• Need simple CRUD operations
• Working with mobile apps or SPAs
• Require caching and HTTP semantics

Choose GraphQL skills when:

• Clients need flexible data fetching
• Reducing over-fetching or under-fetching
• Building aggregation layers
• Need strong typing for APIs

Authentication vs Authorization:

• Authentication (api-authentication.md): Who are you? (Login, JWT, OAuth)
• Authorization (api-authorization.md): What can you do? (Permissions, RBAC)

Production considerations:

• Always implement rate limiting for public APIs
• Use versioning from day one
• Standardize error responses early

Integration with Other Skills

API skills commonly combine with:

Database skills (discover-database):

• API endpoints → Database queries
• Connection pooling for API servers
• Query optimization for API performance

Testing skills (discover-testing):

• Integration tests for API endpoints
• Contract testing for API consumers
• Load testing for API performance

Frontend skills (discover-frontend):

• API client libraries
• Data fetching patterns
• Error handling in UI

Infrastructure skills (discover-infra, discover-cloud):

• API deployment strategies
• Load balancing and scaling
• API gateways and proxies

Usage Instructions

1. Auto-activation: This skill loads automatically when Claude Code detects API-related work
2. Browse skills: Run cat ~/.claude/skills/api/INDEX.md for full category overview
3. Load specific skills: Use bash commands above to load individual skills
4. Follow workflows: Use recommended sequences for common API patterns
5. Combine skills: Load multiple skills for comprehensive coverage

Progressive Loading

This gateway skill (~200 lines, ~2K tokens) enables progressive loading:

• Level 1: Gateway loads automatically (you're here now)
• Level 2: Load category INDEX.md (~3K tokens) for full overview
• Level 3: Load specific skills (~2-3K tokens each) as needed

Total context: 2K + 3K + skill(s) = 5-10K tokens vs 25K+ for entire index.

Quick Start Examples

"Design a REST API for a blog":

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/rest-api-design.md

"Add OAuth authentication to my API":

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authentication.md

"Implement role-based access control":

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-authorization.md

"Prevent API abuse":

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-rate-limiting.md

"Design an API versioning strategy":

cat ~/.claude/skills/api/api-versioning.md

Next Steps: Run cat ~/.claude/skills/api/INDEX.md to see full category details, or load specific skills using the bash commands above.