Integrations that actually stick

20 May 2025

The problem with many integrations isn’t the API — it’s the lack of guardrails around it.

Principles

1. Contracts first: Define payloads and error semantics before you write code.
2. Idempotency: Every sync should be safe to retry.
3. Observability: Logs, metrics, and dead‑letter queues from day one.

Checklist

• Correlate requests with a stable operation id
• Store last‑seen timestamps to avoid re‑processing
• Backoff and circuit‑break noisy dependencies

Your future self will thank you when things go sideways.