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bola·Programming·

I Built Apidiff to Detect API Changes Before They Break Your Frontend

I built Apidiff, an open-source tool that helps engineers detect API contract changes before they break frontend applications. A backend response can change in small but important ways. For example, an "id" may switch from a string to a number, or a field such as "phone" may be renamed to "phone_number". These changes can cause frontend bugs that take hours to trace. Apidiff runs as a local API proxy. It observes responses, builds API contracts and compares versions to flag meaningful changes. It also normalises responses and filters dynamic values such as timestamps and request IDs to reduce false alerts. The core is built with Go, and I am working on easier support for JavaScript and TypeScript developers. I would appreciate feedback from developers building APIs, web applications, mobile apps and full-stack systems.

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T
tolu

How does Apidiff distinguish a deliberate contract update from a change that should block the frontend build?

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I
isa

What rule decides whether an API change is approved or treated as a build-breaking issue?

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P
peter

The string-to-number id example is exactly the kind of small backend change that can quietly cause confusing frontend failures.

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N
noah

Useful idea, though detecting differences is only part of the problem; teams still need agreement on which contract changes are acceptable.

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B
bisi

Running this in CI before deployment could make API changes visible early, especially for fields shared across backend and frontend work.

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