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Agent skill

API Design Reviewer

by borghei in borghei/Claude-Skills

Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes.

MITAuto-check passedBackend & APIs

Install API Design Reviewer

skills CLI
$ npx skills add borghei/Claude-Skills --skill api-design-reviewer -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install borghei/Claude-Skills api-design-reviewer --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/borghei/Claude-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/engineering/api-design-reviewer .claude/skills/api-design-reviewer && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
api-design-reviewer
GitHub stars
886
Token cost
~1.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
607 words
Files
8 (incl. scripts, references)
Skills in repo
354
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes.

  • Reviewing contracts
  • SKILL.md covers Core Capabilities, When to Use, Clarify First and Tools, plus 3 more sections
  • Runs Python scripts from its folder; calls python
  • Managing API versioning

What it does

API Design Reviewer is an agent skill from borghei/Claude-Skills. Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes. Lints OpenAPI specs, generates scorecards, and detects breaking changes between versions. Use when designing APIs, reviewing contracts, or managing API versioning.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 9 other files, including scripts and reference files (for example `references/api_antipatterns.md`, `references/rest-design-patterns.md` and `references/rest_design_rules.md`).

It sits in Backend & APIs, covering API design, Linting and formatting and OpenAPI specifications. It works with OpenAPI. The repository describes itself as: 385 AI skills, 77 expert agents, and 900 stdlib Python tools for every team: engineering, PM, marketing, C-level, compliance, business ops, research, and a LinkedIn toolkit… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Reviewing contracts
  • Managing API versioning

Example prompts

  • “/api-design-reviewer”

Requirements

  • Python 3

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 4a698e8. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    Ships 3 files in scripts/ (Python), which the agent can run.

    Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

    • python

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

API Design Reviewer loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs, and up to ~12k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 64 tokens; SKILL.md has 607 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~64
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.5k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~12k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from borghei/Claude-Skills at commit 4a698e8, republished under its MIT licence (© borghei). 607 words, ~1,475 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/api-design-reviewer/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 7 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
api-design-reviewer
description
Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes. Lints OpenAPI specs, generates scorecards, and detects breaking changes between versions. Use when designing APIs, reviewing contracts, or managing API versioning.
license
MIT + Commons Clause
metadata.version
1.1.0
metadata.author
borghei
metadata.category
engineering
metadata.domain
api-design
metadata.tier
POWERFUL
metadata.updated
2026-06-17

API Design Reviewer

Comprehensive analysis and review of REST API designs against conventions, best practices, and industry standards. Helps engineering teams build consistent, maintainable, well-designed APIs through automated linting, breaking-change detection, and design scorecards.

Core Capabilities

  • API linting & convention analysis — resource naming (kebab-case URLs, camelCase fields), HTTP method usage, URL structure, status-code compliance, error-format consistency, and documentation coverage.
  • Breaking change detection — endpoint removal, response-shape changes, field removal/rename, type changes, new required fields, and status-code changes between two spec versions, with migration guides.
  • API design scoring — weighted scorecard across Consistency (30%), Documentation (20%), Security (20%), Usability (15%), and Performance (15%), with letter grades A–F and recommendations.

When to Use

  • Designing a new REST API or reviewing an API contract.
  • Validating an OpenAPI/Swagger spec against REST conventions.
  • Managing API versioning and detecting breaking changes between releases.
  • Gating deployments on API design quality in CI.

Clarify First

Before producing the review, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

  • Which output — lint report, design scorecard, or breaking-change detection (selects api_linter.py, api_scorecard.py, or breaking_change_detector.py)
  • Spec file(s) — the OpenAPI/Swagger JSON, or the two versions to diff (the input the tools parse)
  • Quality bar / CI gate — minimum grade or fail-on-breaking (sets --min-grade / --exit-on-breaking and how strict the verdict is)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Tools

ToolPurposeCommand
api_linter.pyLint an OpenAPI/Swagger JSON spec for REST conventions and best practicespython scripts/api_linter.py openapi.json --format json
breaking_change_detector.pyDetect breaking changes between two spec versions (with migration guides)python scripts/breaking_change_detector.py v1.json v2.json --exit-on-breaking
api_scorecard.pyScore API design quality across 5 weighted dimensions (A–F grades)python scripts/api_scorecard.py openapi.json --min-grade B

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

  • references/rest-design-patterns.md — REST naming/method/URL principles, versioning strategies, pagination patterns, error formats and status codes, auth/RBAC patterns, rate limiting, HATEOAS, idempotency, backward-compatibility rules, OpenAPI validation, performance, and security best practices. Read when designing or reviewing endpoints.
  • references/tooling-ci-and-troubleshooting.md — the three tools' features, CI/CD and pre-commit integration, best-practices and anti-pattern checklists, troubleshooting table, success criteria, and full CLI flag references. Read when wiring tools into pipelines or debugging.
  • references/rest_design_rules.md — detailed REST design rules reference (resources vs actions, HTTP method semantics with worked examples). Read for an in-depth rules catalog.
  • references/api_antipatterns.md — common API anti-patterns (verb-based URLs / RPC trap and more) with bad/good examples and recommended fixes. Read when auditing an existing API for design smells.
Show full SKILL.md (190 more words)Show less

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

  • Linting OpenAPI 3.x and Swagger 2.0 JSON specifications against REST conventions
  • Detecting breaking, potentially-breaking, and non-breaking changes between two spec versions
  • Scoring API design quality across consistency, documentation, security, usability, and performance
  • Generating actionable migration guides when breaking changes are found

This skill does NOT cover:

  • Runtime API testing, load testing, or contract testing (see api-test-suite-builder)
  • GraphQL, gRPC, or WebSocket API design review
  • Auto-generation of OpenAPI specs from code or server stubs
  • Authentication flow implementation or OAuth server configuration (see senior-security in engineering/)

Integration Points

SkillIntegrationData Flow
engineering/api-test-suite-builderGenerate test cases from linter findingsLinter issues feed into test plan priorities for endpoint validation
engineering/changelog-generatorDocument breaking changes in release notesBreaking change detector output provides structured change data for changelogs
engineering/ci-cd-pipeline-builderGate deployments on API qualityScorecard grade and linter exit codes integrate as pipeline quality gates
engineering/senior-backendReview API implementation against designScorecard recommendations guide backend refactoring decisions
engineering/code-reviewerEnrich PR reviews with API analysisLinter and breaking change reports attach to PR review comments
engineering/release-managerValidate version bumps match change severityBreaking change detector severity levels inform semver version decisions

© borghei, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (scripts, references) in engineering/api-design-reviewer of borghei/Claude-Skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/api_antipatterns.md
  • references/rest-design-patterns.md
  • references/rest_design_rules.md
  • references/tooling-ci-and-troubleshooting.md
  • scripts/api_linter.py
  • scripts/api_scorecard.py
  • scripts/breaking_change_detector.py

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 4a698e8

Compare with similar skills

API Design Reviewer next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

API Design Reviewer compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
API Design Reviewer this skillborghei/Claude-Skills886—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
API DesignerJeffallan/claude-skills12k1 repos~2kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Old Coder API DesignAmazingAng/old-coder749—~3.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
OpenAPI Spec Generationwshobson/agents40k9 repos~511Automated safety check: PassMIT
API Design Patternsrohitg00/awesome-claude-code-toolkit2.7k—~1.2kAutomated safety check: PassApache-2.0
API DesignWrongStack/WrongStack370—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Works with

Categories

Questions about API Design Reviewer

What does API Design Reviewer do?

Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes. API Design Reviewer is an agent skill from borghei/Claude-Skills. Review REST API designs for quality, consistency, and breaking changes.

When should I use API Design Reviewer?

API Design Reviewer fits situations like: reviewing contracts; managing API versioning.

How do I install API Design Reviewer in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add borghei/Claude-Skills --skill api-design-reviewer -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (engineering/api-design-reviewer in borghei/Claude-Skills) into .claude/skills/api-design-reviewer in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install API Design Reviewer in Codex?

Run `npx skills add borghei/Claude-Skills --skill api-design-reviewer -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (engineering/api-design-reviewer in borghei/Claude-Skills) into .agents/skills/api-design-reviewer in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use API Design Reviewer in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add borghei/Claude-Skills --skill api-design-reviewer -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/api-design-reviewer, .gemini/skills/api-design-reviewer, .github/skills/api-design-reviewer and .opencode/skills/api-design-reviewer in your project.

What does API Design Reviewer need to run?

Going by SKILL.md and its folder, API Design Reviewer needs Python for the scripts in its folder and the command-line tools its instructions call (python). Our summary lists: Python 3.

Does API Design Reviewer access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is API Design Reviewer safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. The check reads SKILL.md only: the scripts in the folder are not scanned, so read them before running anything.

What licence does API Design Reviewer use?

API Design Reviewer is published under the MIT licence (declared in SKILL.md). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does API Design Reviewer use?

About 1.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.9k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 10k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to API Design Reviewer?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with API Design Reviewer: API Designer (Jeffallan/claude-skills, 12k stars), Old Coder API Design (AmazingAng/old-coder, 749 stars), OpenAPI Spec Generation (wshobson/agents, 40k stars) and API Design Patterns (rohitg00/awesome-claude-code-toolkit, 2.7k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains API Design Reviewer?

borghei (a GitHub user) maintains it in borghei/Claude-Skills, which has 886 GitHub stars. The repository holds 354 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 7, 2026.

Source: borghei/Claude-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.