Mastering API Resilience: The 3 AM Test and 5 Design Principles

A critical 3 a.m. API outage, costing $14,000 and customer trust, prompted a software engineer to redefine API design. This incident led to "The 3 a.m. Test" and five key principles for building robust, resilient APIs that transformed system reliability from 99.2% to 99.95%.

• A 3 a.m. API outage triggered by a single database failure led to a complete system crash.
• The incident resulted in $14,000 loss in SLA credits and damaged customer trust.
• Author developed "The 3 a.m. Test" for API design to ensure quick issue resolution.
• Five principles for resilient APIs include partial failure, smart timeouts, and error handling.
• Implementing these principles improved API reliability significantly, reaching 99.95%.
• These design best practices are widely corroborated by industry experts and resources.

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