API documentation articles – non academic

Articles found on the web about API documentation, sorted by publication date. They are mostly written and published by the author and most have not have received a peer review or edit.

This list isn’t exhaustive and is manually curated. I try to list articles that describe aspects of API documentation authoring. I try to avoid overtly promotional content (e.g. from companies that provide authoring tools and services), unless it contains more instruction than promotion. But, I’m only human, so some promotional content might have slipped into the list.

See also the Academic paper references.

Title & Link Author Date
What do you consider good API documentation? Various 4/8/2010
“Hello World!” – A Coder’s Guide to Writing API Documentation Peter Gruenbaum 11/1/2010
Web API Documentation Best Practices Peter Gruenbaum 11/12/2010
Designing Great API Docs James Yu 1/11/2012
Why We Write API Documentation Peter Gruenbaum 1/28/2012
REST API Documentation Best Practices Irene Ros 8/22/2012
How to Write Good Object-oriented API Documentation Martin Monperrus 12/28/2012
How to become an API technical writer Sarah Maddox 8/17/2013
Writing API Documentation in an Agile Environment Jonathan Fingold 11/7/2013
API Technical Writing Sarah Maddox 5/12/2014
Writing API Documentation with Slate Lukas White 12/12/2014
How to Write “Good” API Documentation Natalie Kerby 4/2/2015
API Tips — How to Write API Documentation  Ajitesh Kumar 5/17/2015
Best Practices in API Documentation Keshav Vasudevan 5/17/2015
The Best API Documentation Brad Fults 11/13/2015
Best practices and UX tips for API documentation Katalin Nagygyörgy 11/13/2015
Tips and Considerations for Documenting REST API Documentation Dana Fujikawa 5/3/2016
Best Practices for Writing API Docs and Keeping Them Up To Date (Not specified) 9/19/2016
Five Questions Every Technical Writer Faces with API Documentation Ed Marshall 10/6/2016
API Best Practices: Documentation Kin Lane 11/1/2016
The Easiest Ways to Generate API Documentation Chris Wood 11/22/2016
Automation Is the Key for Agile API Documentation Jennifer Riggins 1/24/2017
10 Best Practices for Writing Node.js REST APIs Gergely Nemeth 2/21/2017
Components of Killer API Docs Zachary Flower 5/11/2017
What is API Documentation, and Why It Matters? Keshav Vasudevan 6/6/2017
Best Practices in API Documentation (Reprint of 2015 article) Keshav Vasudevan 6/20/2017
The Importance of API Documentation (Not specified) 9/7/2017
The Ten Essentials for Good API Documentation Diana Lakatos 9/19/2017
Documenting APIs: A guide for technical writers Tom Johnson No date
A-Z of API Documentation (Not specified) No date

18 entries added: Sep 23, 2017
12 entries added: Jan 28, 2018