Show HN: CloudRail – API Integration Solution

Do you plan to open source the code if your company shuts down?

(from asimuvPR when Brightwork.io tried to do the same thing, but ultimately ended up pivoting)

1) What APIs has your team built before that qualifies them to build this?

2) How will you manage changes, bugs, and obscure documentation issues in the APIs that will be made available through you?

..

4) What language will the API be written in?

5) Regarding API access security: How will you handle access to multiple APIs for the same client when each API requires a different set of tokens?

1. Is Xamarin support on the radar at all? That would allow me to integrate apps on multiple device platforms and multiple services all with one library.

That's a pretty compelling case for the kind of work my company does.

2. Is there a one-time, fixed, pricing tier that you've considered (maybe including paid updates)? As a consultant in a larger firm, we will often build apps for a client and hand it off to them when it's done. Handing them a monthly bill isn't often an option, but engaging with them when APIs change and their APP will need to be updated is a fairly common/straightforward thing to do.

It adds API tracking, so presumably there is some connection back to CloudRail. What happens if CloudRail goes down or is responding slowly or the connection is blocked? Does the library still work?

Seeing as it's also only a library, if someone stops paying, does it continue to function? Obviously if the upstream provider(s) change their APIs in a backwards-incompatible way, it would break, which is no different than if you use the provider directly. It seems like what you're really paying for here is the work done to build the library, the updates (and monitoring for need to update), API tracking service, and support. You're not actually using CloudRail's systems for the connection, so is there a license check that disables the library if the CloudRail account goes dead?

The nature of this abstraction also means lowest common denominator. The use of "interfaces" over top is a good way to handle this, but could also get messy. When you have a certain function that is only available on one provider, or is not available on only one of several providers, how do you decide when to create a new interface vs not support that function vs implement it as a "throw not implemented error" (or do you have any never do that)?