A developer's observation on Hacker News cuts to the heart of a modern software development dilemma: "When I look at large companies with public facing APIs their documentation very often seems very intentional and well designed," the post reads, citing examples like Stripe, Transport for London, and Apple. "However, I've never worked at a company where we sit down and plan out an API in enough detail that would produce a document like this. It all seems a bit haphazard and fluid."

This question touches a nerve among engineers who often face pressure to deliver features rapidly, sometimes at the expense of architectural foresight. The polished API documentation from industry leaders can feel intimidating, raising doubts about whether the development process is fundamentally flawed or merely misunderstood.

The Illusion of Perfection

The documentation from companies like Stripe and Apple represents the culmination of relentless iteration, not just initial design. These APIs have undergone years of refinement, driven by real-world usage, developer feedback, and evolving business needs. What appears as intentional design is often the result of countless revisions, deprecations, and hard-won lessons from production environments.

"Great APIs are born from battle scars, not blueprints alone. The polished documentation you see is the artifact of thousands of integration attempts and failures."

— Anonymous Senior API Architect

The Haphazard Reality

For most internal and early-stage projects, the "haphazard and fluid" approach reflects practical constraints. Agile methodologies prioritize delivering working software over exhaustive documentation. Requirements shift, business goals pivot, and technical constraints emerge dynamically. In such environments, rigid upfront planning can become a bottleneck, slowing progress and stifling innovation.

This isn't necessarily negligence but a pragmatic response to uncertainty. As one engineer noted, "You have a list of requirements, people go and implement those with various degrees of quality, and you end up with something that works." The focus remains on functionality first, with design evolving organically.

Bridging the Gap

The solution lies not in choosing between planning and evolution, but in integrating both approaches effectively:

  1. Incremental Design: Start with core contracts that embody fundamental principles (e.g., RESTful design, clear resource nesting), then expand iteratively.
  2. Documentation as Living Artifact: Treat docs as code—versioned, reviewed, and updated with each significant change. Tools like OpenAPI enable this symbiosis.
  3. Feedback Loops: Embed usage analytics and developer feedback mechanisms to identify friction points early.

Stripe's success stems not from initial perfection but from a culture that treats API design as a continuous process. Their documentation clarity emerged from addressing thousands of edge cases reported by developers over time.

The Developer's Dilemma

For individual contributors, the challenge is advocating for design rigor without derailing velocity. This requires demonstrating how upfront investment reduces long-term technical debt—a concept resonant with leaders who prioritize sustainable development.

Ultimately, the polished APIs we admire are artifacts of both intention and adaptation. The lesson isn't that we must replicate Stripe's documentation overnight, but that we should embrace design as a journey rather than a destination. The most successful teams balance fluid execution with strategic guardrails, allowing their APIs to mature gracefully through use rather than stagnate in pursuit of an unattainable initial perfection.