Service · Engineering

Production-grade REST and GraphQL APIs, secured and integrated.

We build the APIs your products and partners run on — clean REST and typed GraphQL, versioned so they don't break callers, secured at the gateway, and documented. All in your own cloud, production in 4–8 weeks.

Fixed scope One accountable lead Production in 4–8 weeks

Secured at the gateway · versioned, documented

WEB MOBILE PARTNER CLIENTS
GATEWAY AUTH · RATE-LIMIT · VALIDATE
REST GRAPHQL EVENTS SERVICES
OWASP-HARDENED VERSIONED CONTRACT

The real problem

Why so many APIs become the thing nobody wants to touch.

An endpoint that returns JSON in a demo is the easy ten percent. The other ninety — versioning so a change doesn't break every app in the field, validation, auth and rate limiting, and docs the next team can integrate against — gets skipped under deadline.

So the API works until it's load-bearing, then turns into a fragile dependency every change has to tiptoe around. That fragility is expensive — 99% of organizations hit an API security issue last year, and 55% delayed shipping an application over it.

99%

Of organizations hit an API security issue in the prior year.

Salt Security, Feb 2025 ↗

55%

Delayed shipping a new application over API security concerns.

Salt Security, Feb 2025 ↗

Where it earns its keep

Where API development earns its keep — and what each use case delivers.

"API development" is a set of specific jobs, each tied to a concrete outcome.

01

Public / partner APIs

Expose your platform to external developers and partners through a stable, versioned contract.

New distribution and revenue without bespoke integration work each time.

02

Third-party & SaaS integration

Connect your systems to the payment, CRM, accounting, and logistics platforms you depend on.

Data flows automatically where staff used to copy it by hand.

03

Mobile & frontend backends (BFF)

Give web and mobile clients a typed API — often GraphQL — that returns exactly what each screen needs.

Faster client teams and lighter, quicker apps.

04

Legacy system wrapping

Put a clean, modern API in front of an aging system you can't replace yet, so new products build against the contract, not the mainframe.

Modernize at the edges without a risky rip-and-replace.

05

Real-time & event-driven endpoints

Build low-latency WebSocket and event APIs for live data — status updates, notifications, streaming.

Live experiences without clients hammering the server to poll.

06

Internal service APIs

Define the contracts your own services talk over, with consistent auth, error shapes, and versioning.

Teams ship in parallel against stable interfaces instead of blocking on each other.

Every call Authorized

95% of API attacks come from authenticated sources. So a valid token isn't trust. We design authorization per request and the OWASP API Top 10 from the first endpoint — security as a property of the platform, not a patch.

As of June 2026 · revisit quarterly

What disciplined API work does to delivery — the measured impact.

Independent industry findings on API practice, cited as third-party evidence — not Silicon Prime's own client results.

63%

Ship an API within a week. Up from 47% the year before, with 74% of organizations now API-first.

Postman, Oct 2024 ↗

55%

Delayed an application launch. Of organizations held a deployment because of API security concerns.

Salt Security, Feb 2025 ↗

95%

Of API attacks were authenticated. And 80% aligned with the OWASP API Security Top 10 — why authorization is checked per request.

Salt Security, Feb 2025 ↗

What's included

What our API development services cover.

The difference between a production API and an endpoint that becomes a liability.

01

REST API design & development

Clean, resource-oriented REST APIs — consistent naming, predictable errors, pagination, and an OpenAPI spec that doubles as docs, mocks, and client SDKs.

02

GraphQL API development

Typed schemas that let many clients ask for exactly what they need in one request — with the resolver and performance work (depth limits, batching, N+1 prevention) that keeps it fast.

03

API integration services

Payment, CRM, accounting, and partner integrations, plus wrapping legacy systems behind a modern contract — so products build against a clean API, not brittle point-to-point links.

04

API gateways & security

A gateway centralizing auth, authorization, and rate limiting — OAuth 2.0 / JWT / API-key auth, request validation, and the OWASP API Top 10 designed against from the start.

05

Versioning, docs & developer experience

A versioning strategy that lets the API evolve without breaking callers, plus published docs, examples, and a sandbox so teams and partners integrate without a meeting.

06

Real-time & WebSocket APIs

Low-latency, event-driven endpoints (WebSocket, server-sent events) for live status, notifications, and streaming — built with the same auth and monitoring as the rest of the surface.

07

API maintenance & optimization

Take over an existing API: add the missing tests and docs, close the security gaps, fix the latency and reliability problems, and harden it for the load it's actually carrying.

What you get — all assigned to you under full work-for-hire IP

A production API in your own cloud tenant
The OpenAPI / GraphQL schema and contract tests
The integration and gateway configuration
Published developer documentation and a sandbox
Monitoring and runbooks
A trained team, full work-for-hire IP transfer

How it runs

How an API development engagement runs.

The same delivery model behind all our software work, tuned for APIs — one accountable lead, fixed scope, no handoffs.

STEP 01

Design the contract

Model the resources or schema, auth model, versioning, and error shapes, and write the OpenAPI / GraphQL spec first.

Output: an agreed API contract callers can build against

STEP 02

Build

Implement the API in your own cloud tenant in Node.js and TypeScript, with validation, auth, and contract tests from the first endpoint.

Output: a working, tested API behind your access controls

STEP 03

Integrate

Wire it to your systems of record and third-party platforms through governed, permissioned connections, and stand up the gateway.

Output: an API connected to the systems it serves

STEP 04

Harden & hand over

Load-test, close OWASP-class gaps, instrument monitoring and rate limiting, publish the docs and sandbox, and train your team.

Output: a production API & a team that owns it

Track record

APIs that have already carried real money and real load.

There's no substitute for having built the transaction infrastructure a business runs on. APIs are the backbone of every system we build, and they have to stay reliable while everything around them changes.

A Stanford-rooted Responsible AI lab, founded 2011, run by founder Kelvin Tran — 20+ years of production engineering, personally accountable for every engagement.

Payment & transaction APIs · acquired 2017

YardClub — for the contractor-equipment marketplace we built the full platform end to end, including the listings, payments, and transaction APIs that processed $120M+ before Caterpillar acquired it. API work where a bug isn't cosmetic — it's a mishandled payment.

Reliable under change · 200+ locations · 4 yrs

BJ's Restaurants — the production discipline that holds a 200+ location chain at twice-a-week releases with zero critical defects across four years is what keeps an API stable while everything calling it keeps moving: contract tests before a change ships, staged rollout, monitoring after.

Why build your APIs with us.

01

We've built transaction infrastructure at scale. Payments and marketplace APIs that moved $120M+ (YardClub, acquired by Caterpillar) — not a first attempt on your dime.

02

Reliability is the product. The discipline that ships a 200+ location business twice a week with zero critical defects is the discipline behind an API you can put load on.

03

Security designed in, not patched on. Authorization per request and the OWASP API Top 10 designed against from the first endpoint — because 95% of API attacks come from authenticated sources.

04

Founder-led, built to transfer. One accountable lead from contract to handover; the schema, tests, gateway config, docs, and code are assigned to you, with your team trained to run it.

Where it matters most

Where a disciplined API matters most.

Questions buyers ask before they build.

REST or GraphQL — which should we use?+
Whichever fits the consumers. REST is the right default for resource-oriented APIs and public/partner access where caching and simplicity matter; GraphQL wins when many different clients need different shapes of data and you want to avoid over-fetching and a proliferation of endpoints. We often build both on the same backend, and decide it with your actual clients and data on the table during design — not by preference.
Can you integrate with the platforms and legacy systems we run?+
Yes — that's a large part of the work. We build integrations to payment processors, CRMs, accounting, logistics, and vertical platforms, and we wrap legacy systems behind a clean modern API so new products build against the contract instead of the old system directly. We scope each integration against the platform's real API and its rate limits, rather than assuming a connector will just work.
How do you handle API security?+
Security is designed in at the gateway, not patched on. Authentication via OAuth 2.0, JWT, or API keys; authorization checked per request; rate limiting and input validation by default; and the OWASP API Security Top 10 designed against from the first endpoint. We assume authenticated traffic can be hostile — 95% of API attacks come from authenticated sources (Salt, Feb 2025) — so authorization, not just authentication, is enforced on every call.
Will the API break our existing clients when it changes?+
No — that's what versioning is for. We design a versioning strategy up front so the API can evolve without breaking callers already in the field, ship breaking changes behind new versions with a deprecation path, and use contract tests so a change that would break a consumer fails in CI rather than in production.
How do you document the API so other teams can use it?+
Every REST API ships with an OpenAPI specification and every GraphQL API with a typed schema — both machine-readable, so the contract drives documentation, mock servers, and client SDKs instead of going stale in a wiki. We deliver published docs, request/response examples, and a sandbox so your teams and external partners can integrate without booking a call with us.
Who owns the API and the code when you're done?+
IP ownership is defined in each engagement's contract, and we scope every build so the schema, contract tests, gateway configuration, documentation, and source code can transfer to you. Everything runs inside your own cloud tenant and your team is trained to operate and extend it, so the engagement is built around a clean handover — keep us on a reduced retainer or take the keys.
How should we evaluate an API development partner?+
Weigh four things: does the partner design security and versioning in from the first endpoint, do they hand over documentation and source so you're never locked in, is one person accountable end to end, and can they prove they ship to production? Then pressure-test reliability — average API uptime slipped from 99.66% to 99.46% year over year (Uptrends, State of API Reliability 2025) — so ask how a partner load-tests and monitors before you sign. Every Silicon Prime engagement runs one accountable lead with no handoffs, an NDA and security review up front, and least-privilege access inside your own cloud.
What does it cost and how long does it take?+
Most APIs reach production in 4–8 weeks under a fixed-scope engagement with one accountable lead and payment tied to the agreed outcome. Cost depends on scope — the number of endpoints, integrations, and the security and real-time requirements — and our AI development cost guide gives real ranges to anchor a budget before we scope.

Thirty minutes · no pitch deck

Ready for an API your products and partners can build on?

Bring the systems and consumers it has to serve — we'll tell you honestly whether it's REST or GraphQL, how we'd secure and version it, and what it takes to get to production.