API

Status pages for API providers

Your customers are developers: they need a feed they can read in code, not only a page they can look at.

What makes an API customer different

When your product is an API, the status page is not read only by a person:

  • A developer wants RSS or JSON, not a newsletter
  • Their system wants to know the failure is on your side before it starts retrying
  • Their integration team wants to see history before signing an SLA

What does not work for developers

A page you can only look at

Pretty, but not automatable. A developer wants an address their code can read.

Status updated by hand

It lags during an incident, exactly when it matters, and leaves gaps in the history afterwards.

One catch-all component

"API operational" says nothing when only the payments endpoint is down.

What you give your developers

RSS, Atom and JSON feeds

Every page has a machine-readable feed, so a customer's system can follow your status without a human.

A Markdown version

Append .md, or send Accept: text/markdown, and the page comes back as text — good for agents and for documentation.

Components per endpoint

Separate components for authentication, payments and webhooks. It is clear exactly what is affected.

A badge for your README

An SVG badge with current status or uptime, ready for your docs or GitHub page.

How to set it up

  1. 1

    Create monitors for the main endpoints with assertions

  2. 2

    Group components by what the customer actually calls

  3. 3

    Turn on RSS, JSON and the badge in your documentation

  4. 4

    Point to the page from your API docs and error responses

  5. 5

    During an incident, publish updates — the feed reaches their systems immediately

Monitors can live in code: a YAML file and one CLI command.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a machine-readable feed?

Yes: RSS, Atom and JSON, and the whole page is available as Markdown.

Can I check more than HTTP?

Yes: HTTP, TCP, DNS, ICMP, gRPC and UDP, with assertions on status, headers, body and duration.

Can I put a badge in the README?

Yes, an SVG badge showing current status or uptime.

Start monitoring in five minutes

One URL, one email address — and you will hear about the next outage from us, not from a customer.

All use cases