API Client Design: Building SDKs That Developers Love
A well-designed API client turns complex HTTP interactions into simple method calls. It handles authentication, retries, errors, and serialization — so users don’t have to. These patterns create clients that developers actually enjoy using. Basic Structure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 import httpx from typing import Optional from dataclasses import dataclass @dataclass class APIConfig: base_url: str api_key: str timeout: float = 30.0 max_retries: int = 3 class APIClient: def __init__(self, config: APIConfig): self.config = config self._client = httpx.Client( base_url=config.base_url, timeout=config.timeout, headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {config.api_key}"} ) def _request(self, method: str, path: str, **kwargs) -> dict: response = self._client.request(method, path, **kwargs) response.raise_for_status() return response.json() def close(self): self._client.close() def __enter__(self): return self def __exit__(self, *args): self.close() Resource-Based Design Organize by resource, not by HTTP method: ...