Kin Lane describes the architecture behind a catalog of 10,000 API providers built over 16 years. Each provider is represented as a GitHub repository containing an apis.yml file in APIs.json format (v0.19), which serves as a machine-readable profile declaring identity, API entries, and standardized property types like OpenAPI specs, Plans, RateLimits, and FinOps data. The catalog has indexed 10,754 OpenAPI specs and 14,123 unique tags. The APIs.json standard provides a shared vocabulary that eliminates the need for custom parsers per provider, enabling governance queries across the entire dataset. The GitHub repos feed APIs.io, a search and discovery layer. Using GitHub as storage provides version history, programmatic access via API, and community editability through pull requests.
Table of contents
Every Repo Is a Machine-Readable Provider ProfileAPIs.json Is the Vocabulary That Makes It ParseableThe Standards Layer Is the Governance LayerHow It Feeds APIs.ioWhy GitHub as the Storage Layer176.3K Impressions3 Comments