This chapter moves away from the technical and architectural aspects of APIs to cover essential processes and methods required throughout the entire API life cycle. The chapter starts by describing the overall development life cycle, not just for APIs but for related activities and assets, which includes the API design-first, service, and consuming application life cycles. It then continues by describing each of the cycles in detail.
This chapter will aid organizations and/or individuals looking to implement the full API life cycle from scratch, or just looking for sources of inspiration to optimize and/or refine existing ones.