api-design SKILL.md skillA
api-design from cbrock84/headcount is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add cbrock84/headcount/api-design@git:20260916.e72e404Pins git:20260916.e72e404 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- cbrock84/headcount
- Path
plugins/technology/skills/api-design/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 4
- Latest version
- git:20260916.e72e404, committed Sep 16, 2026
- First version recorded
- Aug 29, 2026
- Size
- 3,838 bytes
- Repository stars
- 2,076
- License
- MIT
Designs interfaces that survive their consumers — resource modeling, errors, versioning, pagination, and compatibility. Use this to design a new API, review one before it ships, decide how to version or deprecate, fix an interface consumers keep misusing, or work out whether a change is breaking.
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 cannot withdraw once someone depends on it. Design accordingly: the cost of getting it wrong is paid continuously by everyone who integrates. ## Model the domain, not the database Expose concepts the consumer thinks in. An interface that mirrors internal table structure leaks implementation, breaks whenever storage changes, and forces consumers to reconstruct meaning you already had. Name things as the domain names them. Consistency in naming, casing, date formats and identifier style matters more than any individual choice being optimal — an interface that is uniformly imperfect is learnable, and one that is inconsistently excellent is not. ## Errors are part of the contract Most integrations spend most of their code on failure. Give it the same care as the success path: - **Distinguish machine-readable code from human-readable message.** Consumers branch on the code; the message is for the developer reading logs. - **Say what to do about it.** Retryable or not, and after how long. - **Never leak internals** — stack traces and SQL in error bodies are a security finding as well as bad design. …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add cbrock84/headcount/api-design@sha256:c2da55f2fd7d38aaThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260916.e72e404, 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_qbwnffdmyu4xjcel)
4 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 4 versions of this file, between Aug 29, 2026 and Sep 16, 2026, about one every 6 days.
| version | committed | commit | size | audit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| git:20260916.e72e404 latest | 2026-09-16 | e72e404 | 3,838 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260901.49e89d6 | 2026-09-01 | 49e89d6 | 3,499 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260829.2464776 | 2026-08-29 | 2464776 | 2,926 B | A | view · diff |
| git:20260829.3b7c308 | 2026-08-29 | 3b7c308 | 2,927 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 (3838 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
cbrock84/headcount · 2,076 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-18 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_qbwnffdmyu4xjcel GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=cbrock84/headcount/api-design GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/c2da55f2fd7d38aa36beacc2e0796441b6af943e16ff56d6ddbd07ffbcd83730
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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