API Designer Skill

Overview

This skill helps design well-structured REST APIs and GraphQL schemas following industry best practices for consistency, usability, and maintainability.

Activation Triggers

This skill activates when you:

• Need to design new API endpoints
• Want to structure a GraphQL schema
• Have questions about REST conventions
• Need help with API versioning
• Want to standardize response formats

Example prompts:

• "Design a REST API for user management"
• "What should this endpoint structure look like?"
• "Help me create a GraphQL schema"
• "How should I handle pagination in my API?"
• "What's the best way to version this API?"

Design Areas

• REST APIs: Endpoints, methods, status codes
• GraphQL: Types, queries, mutations, subscriptions
• Response Formats: Consistent JSON structures
• Error Handling: Standard error responses
• Pagination: Cursor vs offset pagination
• Versioning: URL vs header versioning

Example Usage

Example 1: REST Endpoint Design

User: "I need endpoints for a blog with posts and comments"

Claude: Designs a complete REST API with proper resource naming, HTTP methods, relationships, and response formats following REST conventions.

Example 2: GraphQL Schema

User: "Create a GraphQL schema for an e-commerce app"

Claude: Creates types, queries, mutations with proper input types, connection patterns for pagination, and error handling payloads.

Example 3: API Standards

User: "Standardize our API response format"

Claude: Proposes a consistent response envelope with data, meta, and error structures that works across all endpoints.

Output Includes

• Endpoint/schema definitions
• Request/response examples
• Status code guidance
• OpenAPI/GraphQL SDL specifications
• Implementation notes

Author

Claude Code Community

Version History

• 1.0.0: Initial release