$devvkit resources --research distributed-systems:-key-concepts-for-api-designers
Distributed Systems: Key Concepts for API Designers
4min[distributed-systems][api][backend]
TL;DR: CAP theorem, eventual consistency, circuit breakers, and rate limiting are the core distributed systems concepts every API developer needs to understand.
Key findings
- •CAP theorem: A distributed system can guarantee at most two of Consistency, Availability, and Partition Tolerance. Partition tolerance is non-negotiable, so the real choice is CP vs AP.
- •Circuit breakers prevent cascading failures by stopping requests to a failing service, allowing it time to recover. Three states: closed (normal), open (failing), half-open (testing recovery).
- •Rate limiting and throttling protect services from overload. Token bucket algorithms allow natural burst behavior while maintaining average rate limits.
- •Idempotency keys enable safe retries in unreliable networks. The client generates a unique key, and the server deduplicates requests with the same key.
Why this matters for developers
Every API is part of a distributed system. Understanding CAP trade-offs, circuit breakers, rate limiting, and idempotency prevents production outages and data corruption.