emitting-api-events_skill

Overview

This skill helps you build event-driven APIs that emit notifications via webhooks, Server-Sent Events (SSE), and real-time channels. It provides scaffolding, endpoint design patterns, and integration guidance so you can quickly add event emission to existing APIs. The goal is reliable, secure delivery of events and clear documentation for consumers.

How this skill works

The skill inspects API design specs, defines resource models and event contracts, and generates endpoint scaffolding for emitters and delivery middleware. It adds handlers for producing events, configures transport mechanisms (HTTP webhooks, SSE streams, or real-time sockets), and wires authentication, retries, and logging. It also produces OpenAPI 3.0 documentation and integration test templates to validate event flows.

When to use it

• You need to notify external systems or clients about state changes in near real-time
• You want to add webhooks to an existing REST API without rearchitecting the backend
• You require server-to-client streaming (SSE) for live feeds or progress updates
• You need a developer-friendly contract (OpenAPI + event schemas) for third-party integrations
• You are designing microservices that publish domain events to interested subscribers

Best practices

• Define clear event contracts (type, schema, required fields) and publish them in OpenAPI or a schema registry
• Use idempotent event handlers and include delivery identifiers to support retries
• Protect delivery channels with authentication, signature verification, and rate limits
• Implement durable delivery: queue events, backoff retries, dead-lettering for failed webhooks
• Provide observability: delivery logs, metrics (success/failure/latency), and replay/debug endpoints
• Include integration tests and consumer contract tests to prevent breaking changes

Example use cases

• User account service emits account.created and account.updated events to third-party CRM via webhooks
• E-commerce platform streams order status updates to a dashboard using SSE for live order tracking
• Payment processor publishes transaction.completed events to downstream analytics via queued deliveries
• Collaboration app pushes real-time notifications to connected clients over WebSocket or SSE when comments are added
• CI system emits job.progress events so dashboards can render live build logs