api-design

api-design is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall. It costs 11 tokens per session (1,406 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to designing web APIs: interfaces that let software systems exchange data and actions in a consistent way.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to plan resource URLs, HTTP methods, status codes, validation, authentication, and other API conventions.
Why use it?
Inconsistent routes, methods, and error responses make APIs difficult to use and easy to misuse. It helps define clearer resources and HTTP behavior.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to plan resource URLs, HTTP methods, status codes, validation, authentication, and other API conventions.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/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 fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall --skill api-design
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall

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/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for api-design

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/fabioc-aloha/alex_skill_mall/api-design.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 11 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,406 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.
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 $0.00011 $0.01406
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.00703
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00281
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00141

Measured 8d ago against content hash ba4e93014eea, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, 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.

plugins/architecture-patterns/api-design/skills/api-design/SKILL.md · 229 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 229 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

API Design Skill

Design APIs that developers love to use.

Core Principle

A good API is intuitive, consistent, and hard to misuse. Design for the consumer, not the implementation.

REST Fundamentals

Resource Naming

Good Bad Why
/users /getUsers Nouns, not verbs
/users/123 /user?id=123 Path params for identity
/users/123/orders /getUserOrders Hierarchical resources
/search?q=term /search/term Query params for filters

HTTP Methods

Method Purpose Idempotent Safe
GET Read resource Yes Yes
POST Create resource No No
PUT Replace resource Yes No
PATCH Partial update No* No
DELETE Remove resource Yes No

Status Codes

Code Meaning When to Use
200 OK Successful GET, PUT, PATCH
201 Created Successful POST
204 No Content Successful DELETE
400 Bad Request Validation error
401 Unauthorized Missing authentication
403 Forbidden Authenticated but not allowed
404 Not Found Resource doesn't exist
409 Conflict State conflict (duplicate)
429 Too Many Requests Rate limited
500 Internal Error Server bug

Contract-First Design

  1. Define the contract (OpenAPI/Swagger)
  2. Review with consumers before coding
  3. Generate server stubs from contract
  4. Implement business logic
  5. Validate responses against contract
openapi: 3.1.0  # 3.1.0 aligns with JSON Schema 2020-12
info:
  title: My API
  version: 1.0.0
paths:
  /users:
    get:
      summary: List users
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Success
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
                $ref: '#/components/schemas/UserList'

Versioning

Strategy Example Recommendation
URL Path /v1/users Preferred - explicit
Header Accept: vnd.api.v1+json Clean but hidden
Query /users?version=1 Avoid

Read the full file on GitHub · 229 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 · 229 lines · 11 tokens per session scan A ba4e93014eea

Subscribe to this mod's changes

api-design is a skill published in the GitHub repository fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall (4 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 1,406 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-09-03.

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