Field notes
What to prepare before an API reliability assessment
A practical checklist so the measurement window starts on day one instead of week two.
Assessments stall when access arrives late. Read-only metrics access, a diagram of the integrations in scope, and a named technical contact remove most of the delay.
List the journeys that matter commercially — not every endpoint. Three to seven paths is enough for a first reliability assessment. Include peak hours for each, especially if your traffic follows Korean business-day patterns or overnight batch windows.
Gather recent incident notes even if they feel incomplete. Half-written timelines still reveal which dependencies failed first and how retries behaved. Those details shape the failure-mode walkthrough.
Decide what “done” looks like before measurement starts. A ranked risk list and remediation order is a different deliverable from a monitoring redesign. Scope clarity keeps the engagement inside its fixed fee.
If you are unsure whether you need a full Reliability Assessment or a narrower Latency Audit, say so on the intake form. We would rather redirect you to the right engagement than stretch an audit into an assessment by accident.