Most software, developed today, exposes an API. It's important to manage the full lifecycle of these APIs so that they can be consumed safely and robustly. A second important aspect is how developers can use their own APIs and their descriptions to drive their development process. To explore this further, we'll take a look at API descriptions in general as well as at OpenAPI in particular.

We'll then look at how lifecycle management, both for consumers and producers, can be supported by using API descriptions and associated tooling. Finally, we'll discuss how this is a logical pathway for establishing and evolving your platform engineering practice.