Glossary of Terms

  • API: The interface including all its endpoints, excluding implementation

  • API-first: The approach to API development where it is treated as a Product development

  • API Description: Description of an API in the OpenAPI format

  • API development: Development of the API as a product, API Lifecycle

  • API implementation: Implementation (server, service) of an API

  • API implementation development: Development of the API implementation (e.g., programming of a service)

  • API Published on Group API Developer Portal: Description of an API in the OpenAPI or GraphQL Schema

  • API Repository: A place where every (including internal APIs) API Description is stored together with the information about its author(s) and deployment host (if any). Unlike Developer Portal, API repository lists every API including those that are not published through an API gateway

  • API (Public - other): Web API or GraphQL API that is exposed to the internet but not intended for consumptions by DPDHL customers (e.g., APIs consumed by Group web pages, Group mobile applications, etc.)

  • Contract: Approved API description. Once approved, the API description becomes the contract binding everybody involved in the API lifecycle (stakeholders, product owners, developers, consumers, etc.)

  • Developer Portal: A place where a published (exposed through an API Gateway) API documentation is available. Here consumers of an API can also retrieve their authentication credentials

  • GraphQL API: Query-style API following the GraphQL specification

  • HATEOAS: Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State (HATEOAS) is a constraint of the REST application architecture that distinguishes it from other network application architectures. With HATEOAS, a client interacts with a network application that application servers provide dynamically entirely through hypermedia. A REST client needs no prior knowledge about how to interact with an application or server beyond a generic understanding of hypermedia.

  • HTTP API: API, that, by following the HTTP protocol and its semantic, follows only those REST constraints granted by the HTTP protocol

  • Product Owner: The term product owner is defined differently across the Group. In the absence of a universal definition, the term product owner in the scope of this document will refer to an aspirational role that follows the API-first approach to API development.

  • REST API: API that follows every constraint of the REST architectural style

  • RESTful API:
    API that follows only some of the constraints of the REST architectural style

  • Web API: REST, RESTful or HTTP API