Getting started with a bid API integration.
A six-step plan for choosing a workflow, verifying provider access, building a read-only adapter, and adding reliable authorized actions.
1. Define one concrete user workflow
Write the screen and the decision it supports. Reading the latest stock bid, managing a domain listing, and sending a residential offer are different projects. Identify the asset, the source, the actor, and the required outcome. Avoid beginning with an undefined promise to connect every market through the same button.
2. Verify the official access route
Find the provider’s documentation, record the intended operation, and confirm account permissions for the correct environment. Mark capabilities as documented, granted, tested, or unconfirmed rather than reducing them to a single yes/no flag. The sources directory gives the official starting points used by the market pages.
3. Build a read-only adapter
Start with a small set of records. Preserve provider identifiers, source time, receipt time, units, and any fields required to interpret the observation. Validate the payload before normalizing it. Use fictional fixtures to test missing values and unexpected states. Keep source-specific extensions where a shared field would erase meaning.
4. Add observable recovery
Expose whether the adapter is initializing, current, stale, or recovering. Test a restart, a disconnected stream, an incomplete page, and a delayed response. Record safe diagnostics without logging credentials. The rate-limit guide describes how to shape retries rather than turning a short interruption into a request storm.
5. Add commands only with authority
An execution path needs the identified actor, account permission, approved payload, spending controls where relevant, and a recoverable command ID. Protect credentials on the server side of the actual application. A static public website is not the place to store provider secrets. Establish an unknown state for ambiguous results and a defined reconciliation path.
6. Prove the complete lifecycle
Demonstrate a valid observation, an authorized action if supported, a confirmed provider state, and any later completion event. Test duplicates and out-of-order updates. Agree on what complete means for the specific market: acknowledgement, payment, delivery, and ownership can be different milestones. Use the architecture field note to review the resulting design.