SYLENT
Engineering

API & Microservices Design

Clean API contracts and microservices that communicate reliably at scale.

Overview

APIs are the contracts between systems. When they are poorly designed, every team that depends on them pays the cost in bugs, workarounds and wasted time. We design APIs that are consistent, well-documented and built to evolve without breaking existing consumers.

For systems that have outgrown a monolith, we help decompose into microservices with clear ownership boundaries, independent deployment pipelines and reliable inter-service communication. We do not split services for the sake of it. Every service boundary has to justify its operational complexity.

Technical Details

API Design Standards

Every API starts with a contract definition before any implementation. OpenAPI 3.x specs for REST, schema-first design for GraphQL. Consistent naming conventions, error response formats and pagination patterns across all endpoints. API versioning strategy defined upfront so breaking changes never surprise consumers.

Service Decomposition

We decompose monoliths along domain boundaries, not technical layers. Each service owns its data store and exposes functionality through well-defined APIs. We use the strangler fig pattern for gradual migration rather than risky big-bang rewrites. Service boundaries are validated against actual team structure and deployment cadence.

Inter-Service Communication

Synchronous calls via REST or gRPC with circuit breakers, retries and timeouts. Asynchronous messaging via event buses for operations that do not need immediate responses. Saga patterns for distributed transactions that span multiple services. Service mesh for observability and traffic management in larger deployments.

Testing Strategy

Contract testing between services using Pact or similar tools to catch breaking changes before deployment. Integration test suites that run against real service dependencies in staging environments. Load testing with realistic traffic patterns to validate performance under pressure.

Tech Stack

OpenAPIGraphQLgRPCRESTDockerKubernetesRabbitMQKafkaPactIstio

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