Sharing Information Across API Landscapes: Using the Registry Pattern

One goal of API governance is to promote coherence across APIs. One aspect of this coherence is to make sure that information can be shared across APIs, for example identifiers and other values that should be consistent across APIs.

Registries are one way to promote and support this pattern. Registries are places where shared value spaces are managed and available for lookup. They have change and access policies associated with them so that it's well-defined how value spaces are managed and evolve over time.

One popular example of registries are the registries of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which are managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). The Internet and the Web would not be able to function without these registries, so it's very informative to understand which role they are playing and how API landscapes can benefit from the same pattern.

IANA Protocol Registries: www.iana.org/protocols
YouTube video: "Improving API Designs with Vocabularies: Using Registries":    • Improving API Designs with Vocabulari...  
Erik Wilde, "The Use of Registries", Internet Draft, July 2019: datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-wilde-registri…

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