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Documentation

API Best Practices

Rate Limiting
  • Monitor rate limit headers: Keep track of your remaining requests to avoid hitting the rate limit. Adjust your request rate accordingly.
  • Implement exponential backoff: When you receive a 429 response, wait before retrying and increase the wait time for consecutive failures.
Caching
  • Cache responses when possible: To reduce the number of API calls, cache responses that don't change frequently.
  • Use ETags and conditional requests: Leverage HTTP caching mechanisms to avoid transferring unchanged resources.
Performance Optimization
  • Batch operations: Where applicable, use batch operations to reduce the number of API calls.
  • Optimize file sizes: Compress and optimize your files before uploading to reduce processing time.
  • Use pagination: When retrieving large datasets, use pagination to improve response times.
Security
  • Secure your API keys: Never expose API keys in client-side code or public repositories.
  • Use HTTPS: Always use HTTPS for all API requests.
  • Implement proper authentication: Set up proper authentication flows for your application.
Error Handling
  • Graceful error handling: Always handle API errors gracefully to provide a good user experience.
  • Log errors: Keep detailed logs of API errors for troubleshooting.
  • Implement timeout handling: Set appropriate timeouts for API requests and handle timeout errors.
Documentation
  • Stay current: Regularly check the documentation for updates, deprecations, and new features.
  • Use client libraries: When available, use our official client libraries to simplify integration.
  • Test in sandbox: Test your integration in a sandbox environment before going to production.

Advanced Best Practices

When building a production application with the Storylinez API, consider these additional best practices:

Implement Proper Retry Logic

When you encounter transient errors (like rate limits or temporary server issues), implement a retry strategy:

  • Start with a small delay (e.g., 1 second)
  • Use exponential backoff to increase the delay for consecutive failures
  • Add a small random jitter to prevent thundering herd problems
  • Set a maximum number of retries to avoid infinite loops

Optimize Uploads and Downloads

For file operations, consider these optimizations:

  • Use chunked uploads for large files
  • Implement resumable uploads for better reliability
  • Compress files before upload when appropriate
  • Consider using background tasks for large file operations

Implement Webhooks

For long-running operations, consider using webhooks instead of polling:

  • Set up a secure endpoint to receive webhook notifications
  • Implement proper verification of webhook payloads
  • Process webhook events asynchronously
  • Implement idempotent handling for webhook events (to handle duplicates)