api-design

api-design is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit. It costs 33 tokens per session (821 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide for designing predictable web API contracts. An API is an interface that lets software exchange requests and responses; the guide covers naming, errors, versions, pagination, compatibility, and OpenAPI documentation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to design REST, GraphQL, or gRPC interfaces, define status codes and error formats, plan versioning, and document request and response shapes.
Why use it?
It helps prevent clients from breaking when an API changes and makes responses easier to understand and use.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: mentions Claude Code.

Good fit Use it to design REST, GraphQL, or gRPC interfaces, define status codes and error formats, plan versioning, and document request and response shapes.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit/api-design
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit --skill api-design
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for api-design

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit/api-design.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit/api-design)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit/api-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit/api-design.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 33 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 821 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Prompt Injection · line 10
    Hidden instructions were detected in comments or invisible text. These could contain malicious directives. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Audit all comments and invisible characters. Remove any instructions that direct the agent to perform unauthorized actions. Use plain, reviewable content.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00033 $0.00821
Opus 5 $0.00016 $0.00411
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00164
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00082

Measured 8d ago against content hash 075a407e3290, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

api-design scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

claude-starter/skills/api-design/SKILL.md · 53 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 53 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

API Design

Trigger phrases: "api design", "api contract", "api versioning", "openapi", "swagger", "rest contract", "breaking api change", "response shape", "response format", "endpoint returns", "error format"

Goal: a contract the consumer can predict and that can evolve without breaking. Once published, a public API is a commitment; a breaking change is expensive. Stack-agnostic (REST as the baseline; GraphQL/gRPC follow similar principles).

Checklist

  • Resource names are consistent (plural nouns, a single kebab/camel style), resources not verbs
  • Correct HTTP semantics: GET (side-effect free) · POST · PUT/PATCH · DELETE; correct status code
  • A uniform error model: machine-readable code + human message + (if any) field details
  • A clear versioning strategy (URL /v1 or header); a breaking change means a new version
  • Pagination/filtering/sorting defined and consistent on large collections
  • Backward compatibility: adding a field is additive; removing a field or changing its meaning is breaking → version
  • Idempotency (for POST/payment-like cases) supported via a key when needed
  • The contract is documented in OpenAPI; example request/response present (coordinate with docs-writer)

How

  1. Model the resource — a noun not a verb: POST /orders (✓), POST /createOrder (✗).
  2. Status codes: 200/201/204 · 400 validation · 401/403 authorization · 404 · 409 conflict · 422 · 429 · 5xx. Use them meaningfully.
  3. Error contract — every error has the same shape:
    { "code": "ORDER_NOT_FOUND", "message": "Order not found", "details": [] }
    
    No stack trace / internal detail leakage (overlaps with security-scan).
  4. Versioning: additive changes in the same version; breaking (remove/rename a field / add a required field) → /v2.
  5. Collection: pagination (cursor or offset), filter/sort parameters; a consistent envelope.
  6. Write the contract — OpenAPI/schema; with examples. Wire the change to docs-writer, and if breaking to release/CHANGELOG.

Read the full file on GitHub · 53 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 53 lines · 33 tokens per session scan A 075a407e3290

Subscribe to this mod's changes

api-design is a skill published in the GitHub repository byerlikaya/claude-starter-kit (22 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 33 tokens to every session and 821 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.