Your web app's functionality is compromised by a third-party API update. How do you get it back on track?

Getting a web app back on track after a third-party API update involves: 1️⃣ Assessing the impact on app functionality and user experience. 2️⃣ Communicating with the API provider for insights and timelines. 3️⃣ Developing a workaround or integrating an alternative solution. 4️⃣ Testing the changes thoroughly before deployment. This approach minimizes downtime and ensures a smooth transition for users.

Immediate Steps: Identify which parts of the application are affected. Determine the scope and severity of the disruption (e.g., entire functionality vs. specific features). Tools: Error logs and monitoring tools. User reports and feedback.

Identify the Changes: 1.Review the API's documentation for changes. 2.Check for deprecation notices, new parameters, or changes in the response structure. Update Your Code: 1.Modify your integration to align with the new specifications. 2.Update deprecated functions and adjust for changes in response structures. Test the Integration: 1.Create test cases to ensure the updated integration works. 2.Use both unit and integration tests. Check for Related Dependencies: Ensure other dependencies or libraries interacting with the API are updated or compatible. Update Documentation: 1.Document changes and update internal documentation.

When a third-party API update compromises web app, quickly assess the damage and identify the root cause. Consult the updated API documentation and adjust the codebase accordingly. Communicate transparently with your users about the issue and your resolution efforts. Use notifications, email, or social media to inform them, acknowledging any inconvenience caused. Provide a realistic timeframe for when they can expect a fix. This honesty builds trust and helps mitigate user frustration during downtime. Thoroughly test the updates before deploying incrementally to ensure stability. Monitor the app post-deployment and iterate as needed.

Internal Communication: Inform your development and support teams about the issue. Assign roles for investigating and resolving the problem. External Communication: Notify users of the issue and provide an estimated timeline for resolution. Use multiple channels (e.g., email, in-app notifications, social media) to keep users informed.

Strengthen Future Resilience Preventative Measures: Implement more robust error handling for API changes. Set up automated monitoring to detect API changes early. API Management: Maintain regular communication with API providers to stay informed about upcoming changes. Consider using API versioning or an abstraction layer to decouple your application from direct API dependencies.

Consider if this could have been prevented or better mitigated in the architectural design. When depending on third party APIs we generally want to architect as soft dependency as possible. We want to encapsulate such dependency, so that if any outage or breaking change happens our application is not impacted or minimally so. Ideally any communication to APIs that we don’t control happens asynchronously. If we can model this as tasks that we process in a queue we can replay any events that were missed when the problem is fixed. If we can’t do that, our application should fail gracefully and notify us of the problem, we should monitor this as the risk of external API going down or breaking always exists.