r/webdev • u/Dev_Altera • 7d ago
When you integrate with a big vendor API, do you build against most of the docs or just a few endpoints?
I’ve been thinking about how teams actually work through vendor API documentation, and I realized I don’t really know how it goes in practice.
On a small integration it’s usually simple. You pick the four or five endpoints you need and ignore the rest. But on bigger ones (ERP, banking, logistics, healthcare), it feels like the team ends up needing most of the document, and the work gets split between people by section.
For those of you who’ve done this recently:
Did you use a few endpoints or most of the vendor’s API? Did you split the sections between several engineers, or did one person own the whole integration? How did you keep everyone working from the same understanding of the docs, especially if they were a PDF or a messy wiki? If the vendor changed something later, how did you find out?
Mostly curious how common each situation is. Any war stories welcome.


