Step 1 / 5 · 10 min
Start from the user job and assign source-of-truth ownership.Draw the boundary
- Name the trigger and desired product outcome.
- State which system owns each important field.
- Choose the smallest API operation that can serve the job.
Build · Core skill lab
Live API Contract Walkthrough
Trace one integration from user job through request, response, failure, and recovery before committing product scope.
- Decision
- Can this API support the user workflow safely, reliably, and within its operating constraints?
- Timebox
- 75 minutes + one sandbox request
- Output
- API integration contract
Bring to the bench
- One integration-dependent user workflow
- The provider’s current API documentation
- Sandbox credentials with minimum permissions
Your work saves in this browser.
Field tools
Use the instrument, not a blank page.
Copy these into your interview, agent, review, or working document. They are specific to this repetition.
template
Integration contract
Complete this before estimating the feature.
USER JOB / TRIGGER / PRODUCT OUTCOME SOURCE OF TRUTH BY FIELD METHOD + VERSIONED ENDPOINT REQUEST: path / query / body / idempotency RESPONSE: consumed fields / nullability / pagination AUTH: credential / minimum scopes / tenant binding / rotation DATA: allow-list / retention / logs / provenance / disconnect FAILURE: status → retry/fallback/user state LIMITS: rate / latency / availability OBSERVABILITY: request ID / correlation / safe metrics
checklist
Sandbox request checklist
Protect credentials and make the result reproducible.
Use provider sandbox or non-production tenant. Create a minimum-scope credential. Keep secrets in environment/server storage. Use synthetic or approved data. Capture method, URL without secret query values, status, request ID, Retry-After, elapsed time, and parsed shape. Redact token, cookies, personal data, and confidential payloads before saving evidence. Revoke temporary credentials after the test.
Calibrate judgment
Compare the evidence, not the polish.
A product decision from protocol evidence
A CRM read integration supports an automated client handoff.
Use a minimum-scope deal read and keep the CRM as commercial source of truth. Association data can lag, so poll twice, preserve the draft, and offer manual account selection. On 429 honour Retry-After; after 8 seconds move to background rather than holding the user.
Why it works: Endpoint behaviour, authority, provider limits, degraded UX, and ownership all change the product design.
Happy-path integration ticket
Connect to the CRM API, fetch customer data, handle errors, and make it secure. Engineering can choose the endpoints and scopes.
Why it fails: The user job, data ownership, contract, authority, failure recovery, operating limits, and acceptance evidence are missing.
Review → revise → repeat
The artifact is the beginning of the rep.
Check only standards your current artifact actually meets. Then record one consequential revision before exporting it.