Your API docs have 47 endpoints listed. Each one has the HTTP method, the path, the request body, and the response schema. It's complete, accurate, and thoroughly useless.
Why? Because when I land on your docs, I usually do not want an endpoint inventory.
I want to complete a task.
I want to know how to create the customer, attach the payment method, start the subscription, handle the webhook, recover from failure, and test it safely.
Endpoint reference is necessary. It is not the product.
Reference is not onboarding
A reference page answers:
- what path exists
- what method it accepts
- what fields are allowed
- what the response looks like
Onboarding answers:
- what should I do first?
- what order do these calls happen in?
- what can fail?
- what should I store?
- how do I test this without breaking production?
If your docs only have reference pages, the developer has to reverse-engineer the workflow from raw parts.
That is why "complete" docs can still feel unusable.
Start with the jobs developers actually have
For most APIs, the real docs should start with task paths:
- authenticate a request
- create the first resource
- update the resource safely
- listen for a webhook
- retry a failed operation
- move from test mode to production
Then each task can link down into the endpoint reference.
The guide starts with the developer goal, shows a working path, includes examples, then links to exact endpoint details.
The order matters. If the first page is a giant reference table, you are asking the reader to build the mental model alone.
Show a complete path, not isolated calls
Bad docs show one perfect request:
POST /customersBetter docs show the sequence:
- Create the customer.
- Create the subscription.
- Store the returned ids.
- Listen for the confirmation webhook.
- Handle failure and cancellation states.
The sequence is what developers need to ship the integration.
Even better, include the shape of the state machine:
