Understand API changes
Middesk uses major-release versioning for its API, currently in version 1 (v1). This guide explains how Middesk categorizes API changes and manages backwards compatibility.
Breaking changes
Breaking changes are not backwards compatible and can cause existing integrations to fail. Middesk rarely makes breaking changes, but when necessary, notifies affected customers in advance and provides an opt-out option.
Examples of breaking changes:
- Removing or renaming fields in API responses
- Changing the data type of existing fields
- Removing or deprecating API endpoints
- Modifying authentication methods or security protocols
- Decreasing rate limits
- Removing webhook events
Non-breaking changes
Non-breaking changes are backwards compatible with existing integrations. These are typically additive changes that don’t affect current functionality.
Examples of non-breaking changes:
- Adding new API endpoints
- Adding optional request parameters
- Adding new fields to API responses
- Changing the order of fields in responses
- Changing opaque string formats (such as IDs or error messages)
- Adding new webhook events
Non-breaking changes can be further broken down into disruptive and non-disruptive changes.
Disruptive changes
Some backwards-compatible changes may still affect your business logic or workflows. For disruptive changes, Middesk contacts affected customers in advance and uses feature flags to opt those users in.
Examples of disruptive, non-breaking changes:
- Adding secondary data sources for address verification (such as Google Places or websites)
- Auto-subscribing customers to new webhook event types
- Changing data sources for the watchlist database
- Adding new status values (
success,warning,failure) to existing insights or tasks
Non-disruptive changes
Most API changes fall into this category and don’t affect your integration.
Examples of non-disruptive, non-breaking changes:
- New endpoints like Policies
- New Task types
- New fields in the Businesses API
- Additional optional filters for
GET /v1/businesses
