api-design SKILL.md skillA
api-design from amey-thakur/ai-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/api-design@git:20260728.fac4544Pins git:20260728.fac4544 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- amey-thakur/ai-skills
- Path
skills/apis/api-design/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 2
- Latest version
- git:20260728.fac4544, committed Jul 28, 2026
- First version recorded
- Jul 18, 2026
- Size
- 2,520 bytes
- Repository stars
- 14
- License
- MIT
Design HTTP and library APIs that are predictable, hard to misuse, and stable under growth. Use when creating or reviewing endpoints, public functions, or wire formats.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# API design
An API is a promise you keep for years. Design for the caller you cannot
see, then keep the promise boring.
## Method
1. **Start from the caller's sentence.** Write the code or request the
caller *wants* to make, before any implementation exists: `POST
/notebooks/{id}/share` or `client.notebooks.share(id)`. If the ideal call
is awkward to say, the design is wrong at the root.
2. **Name by domain, shape by convention.** Nouns for resources, verbs for
actions that are not CRUD. Same word for the same concept everywhere:
an API where "document", "file", and "source" mean one thing teaches
distrust of every name.
3. **Make the common case one call** with obvious defaults, and the rare
case possible with explicit options. Never make every caller pay a
configuration tax for flexibility one caller needs.
4. **Errors are API.** Every failure a caller can cause gets a distinct,
documented, stable error with: what went wrong, on which input, and what
to do. A caller should distinguish "you sent garbage" (4xx / typed
error), "we broke" (5xx), and "try later" without parsing prose.
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add amey-thakur/ai-skills/api-design@sha256:11daf62a03249cd3The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260728.fac4544, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_7cccg265skunpenl)
4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 2 versions of this file, between Jul 18, 2026 and Jul 28, 2026, about one every 10 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260728.fac4544 latest | 2026-07-28 | fac4544 | 2,520 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260718.7c1285c | 2026-07-18 | 7c1285c | 2,524 B | A | view |
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (2520 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
amey-thakur/ai-skills · 14 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-09-06 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_7cccg265skunpenl GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=amey-thakur/ai-skills/api-design GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/11daf62a03249cd325bc4c8016ca018028cdfb5633a905de69374d8fb4aafe33
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.
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