API Change Pull Request Template

API Change PR Template

API changes impact downstream consumers — frontend applications, mobile apps, third-party integrations, and other microservices. This template ensures API changes are thoroughly documented and backward compatibility is considered.

Template Structure

## Description
<!-- Describe the API changes. -->

## API Changes

### New Endpoints
<!-- List new endpoints with methods and paths. -->

### Modified Endpoints
<!-- Describe what changed in existing endpoints. -->

### Removed Endpoints
<!-- List endpoints being removed (if any). -->

## Request / Response Examples
```json
// Example request
{
  "field": "value"
}

// Example response
{
  "status": "success",
  "data": {}
}

Backward Compatibility

• This change is backward compatible
• Breaking change with migration path documented
• API version bumped

Checklist

• OpenAPI / Swagger spec updated
• API documentation updated
• Request validation added
• Response schema matches documentation
• Error responses follow standard format
• Rate limiting configured
• Authentication / authorization verified
• Integration tests updated

Migration Guide

Related Issues

### Endpoint Documentation

The structured New/Modified/Removed Endpoints sections make it easy for reviewers to understand the scope of API changes at a glance. This information is also useful for generating changelogs and notifying API consumers.

### Request/Response Examples

Concrete examples are more valuable than abstract descriptions. They help reviewers verify the API contract and serve as test cases for integration testing.

### Backward Compatibility Assessment

The backward compatibility checkboxes force an explicit declaration about whether the change breaks existing consumers. This is critical for public APIs and microservice architectures.

### Migration Guide

When breaking changes are unavoidable, the Migration Guide section provides step-by-step instructions for consumers to update their integrations. This section often gets copied into release notes.