Versioning Protocols
Standards and methodologies for managing changes and updates to APIs, software interfaces, and data formats while maintaining backward compatibility and clear communication of breaking changes. Covers Semantic Versioning (SemVer), Calendar Versioning (CalVer), URI path versioning, header-based versioning, and deprecation management strategies. Used by developers, platform teams, and API governance programs to build maintainable and predictable API lifecycle policies.
Limited machine-readable signal and partial portal coverage — documentation a human can read, but little a machine or agent can consume without scraping.
API Evangelist profiles Versioning Protocols the way a machine reads it — 39 machine-readable artifacts across 5 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Versioning Protocols scores 39.5/100 (thin), with a separate agent-readiness read of 7/100 (human only). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
How we profile Versioning Protocols
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Versioning Protocols. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 5
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.
Semantic Versioning (SemVer)
Semantic Versioning is a versioning scheme using a MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format where MAJOR increments denote breaking changes, MINOR increments indicate new backward-compatible fea...
Calendar Versioning (CalVer)
Calendar Versioning (CalVer) uses the release date as the version identifier, typically in YYYY.MM.DD or YYYY-MM-DD format. Used by APIs like Stripe (date-based versions e.g., 2...
URI Path Versioning
URI path versioning embeds the API version in the URL path, typically as the major version number (e.g., /v1/users, /v2/users). The most widely adopted strategy for public REST ...
Header-Based Versioning
Header-based versioning passes the API version in a custom HTTP request header (e.g., API-Version: 2026-04-01 or Accept: application/vnd.api.v2+json), keeping URLs clean and ena...
OpenAPI Versioning
OpenAPI handles versioning through the info.version field (using SemVer), the deprecated flag on individual operations, parameters, and schemas, and multiple server entries for ...
Pricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Rate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Versioning Protocols Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Features 8
The notable capabilities this provider advertises, captured as structured features so they can be searched and compared instead of read one landing page at a time.
Notable capabilities this provider offers.
Semantic Versioning
MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH versioning that communicates the impact of changes on API consumers.
Calendar Versioning
Date-based versioning (YYYY.MM.DD) that communicates the freshness of an API release.
URI Path Versioning
Embedding the API major version in the URL path for explicit, cache-friendly versioning.
Header-Based Versioning
Passing the API version in HTTP headers for clean URL structures and content negotiation.
Query Parameter Versioning
Appending the version to request URLs as a query string parameter (e.g., ?version=2).
Deprecation Management
Structured policies for communicating and retiring old API versions with adequate notice.
Breaking Change Detection
Tooling and processes to identify breaking changes between API versions using spec diffing.
N-2 Support Policy
Support policy maintaining the current major version plus the two previous versions before retirement.
Scroll within the panel for all 8 ·
Semantic Vocabularies 1
JSON-LD contexts give the data shared meaning across APIs. We profile them because semantics are what let a machine reconcile 'customer' here with 'customer' somewhere else.
JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.
Versioning Protocols Context
JSON-LDSpectral Rules 1
Governance rulesets we run against this provider's specs — the automated checks behind parts of the score. Profiling them makes the quality bar explicit and re-runnable, not a matter of opinion.
Versioning Protocols API Rules
SPECTRALJSON Schema 3
Standalone JSON Schema definitions describe the data models behind the API. We profile them so the shapes are validatable on their own — useful long after a single request is forgotten.
Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.
JSON Structure 3
JSON Structure captures the data shapes in a form built for tooling — a complement to JSON Schema that keeps the model machine-legible.
JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.
Versioning Protocols Calver Structure
JSON STRUCTUREVersioning Protocols Semver Structure
JSON STRUCTUREVersioning Protocols Uri Path Versioning Structure
JSON STRUCTUREExamples 3
Real request and response payloads are what turn a spec from abstract into obvious — and they're one of the twelve things an agent needs to call an API correctly on the first try.
Example request and response payloads for these APIs.
Security Posture 1
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Use Cases 5
What developers actually build with this provider — captured so the catalogue answers 'what is this for', not just 'what does this expose'.
What developers build with this provider.
API Lifecycle Governance
Establish organizational versioning policies that balance innovation with backward compatibility.
Breaking Change Communication
Communicate breaking changes clearly to API consumers with version bumps and deprecation notices.
Multi-Version Support
Maintain multiple active API versions simultaneously to support consumers at different adoption stages.
Automated Change Detection
Integrate spec diffing tools into CI/CD pipelines to detect breaking changes before release.
Deprecation Planning
Plan and execute API version deprecations with 12-18 months notice and migration guides.
Integrations 6
Pre-built integrations with other platforms tell you where this provider already fits in a stack.
Pre-built integrations with other platforms and tools.
Kong API Gateway
Deploy version routing plugins, deprecation headers, and logging in Kong for API versioning.
Apigee
Support versioned API proxies and detailed version analytics in Google Apigee.
AWS API Gateway
Run different stages for version control and access management in AWS API Gateway.
Azure API Management
First-class support for multiple API versions and revisions in Azure APIM.
oasdiff
Open-source tool for detecting breaking changes between OpenAPI specification versions.
Redocly
API documentation and governance platform with versioning and deprecation management features.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Versioning Protocols — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Design & Contract 1
Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events
Access & Security 1
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Company 1
The organization behind the API
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