How to do a third-party API integration?

API stands for “Application Programming Interface” and refers to the various means one company has of communicating with another company’s software internally. An API would allow a third party such as Facebook to directly access the various functions of an external application, such as ordering a product on Amazon. A company will likely release an API in order to increase its audience by enticing others to develop integrations with its popular services.

The first step to performing a third-party API integration is finding the right API for your needs. Each API will have its own documentation which will detail the various endpoints and functions that are available. Once you’ve found the right API, the next step is to sign up for a developer account with the company that owns the API. This will give you access to various keys and tokens that are needed to authenticate your requests.

After you’ve signed up for a developer account, the next step is to begin making requests to the API. Most APIs will use a “REST” architecture, which means that there are various endpoints that you can make requests to in order to perform different actions. The documentation for the API should detail what each endpoint does and how to use it. Once you’ve written your code to make requests to the API, the final step is to test it to make sure everything is working as expected.