How I Develop APIs

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Every backend I build is an ASP.NET Core API, and they all look alike on purpose. When the structure is the same everywhere, I never have to remember where a thing lives, a new feature is a list of files to add rather than a design decision, and a test that fails points at one small piece of code.

This page describes that shape, using Heimdall as the example throughout. Heimdall is my identity management API: people, applications, logins, two-factor authentication and permissions, for several client systems at once, each in its own scope. It is the largest API I have, so every pattern here has been tested against a real use case rather than a toy one. All code on this page is taken from it, trimmed only where noted.

The Conventions I Follow

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 18:00:00 +0000

A convention is a decision made once. Without them, every new repository, class and commit reopens the same small questions: what to call it, where to put it, how to phrase it. None of those questions is hard, but answering them again every time is slow, and answering them differently every time leaves a codebase that reads like it was written by several people who never met.

This page collects the conventions I follow in my own projects. Where a style guide already covers something, I follow it; the Google Style Guides are my default reference for the languages they cover. What is written here is either what those guides leave open, or a choice I have made on top of them.

Code Style on Artur Rios Lab

How I Develop APIs

The Conventions I Follow