API Integration Guide Template
Four documents and two sheets that order your integration guide by the sequence sandbox logs show, not by your API's own resource list.
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Integration Guide
[API name], [n] documented resources
The sequence, in four counts
| Resources checked against their own first-touch order | — |
| Resources that tie with the documented order | — |
| Resources displaced from the documented order | — |
| Largest single displacement, in steps | — |
The question a spec-generated guide never asks
Not what order the resources were added to the codebase in. What order sandbox logs show real integrations actually touching them in.
Confirmed against real tickets
Every displaced step cross-checked against the Common Error Register before the guide moves it, so a reorder is backed by a ticket count rather than a hunch.
Most developer-documentation advice agrees on one point: organize by the developer's journey, not by the product's own resource list. Mintlify's own navigation guide sets this out as a table, feature-centric against journey-centric, and recommends the second. GOV.UK's API documentation guidance goes further, building task-based sections from user research. Neither one measures the journey from what developers actually did. Both assume it: one from a generic template, the other from an interview.
This pack measures it instead. The worked example is Ledgerly Pay, an invented payments API with six documented resources. Checking 240 sandbox integrations that reached a first live charge against their own call order found two resources touched earlier than the spec documents. Payment Methods moved one step early. Webhooks moved three steps early, the largest single displacement of the six. The Integration Step Register records each resource's documented position, its measured position, and the gap between them, so a reorder ships with a number behind it, not a hunch.
The Common Error Register is the confirmation layer. Before the guide was reordered, those two displaced steps accounted for 163 of 312 support tickets in one quarter, 52.2 percent. One was an invoice failing with no default payment method. The other was a signature check failing on a genuine event because the secret was set too late. After reordering, the same two categories fell to 27 of 176 tickets in an equal-volume quarter, an 83.4 percent drop, while every other category held flat. Whether the reference still matches the product is the documentation audit.
What's in the pack
Integration Guide
Every documented resource, sequenced by measured first-touch order instead of the spec's own resource list, with the error each reordering avoids named.
Integration Step Register
Documented position against measured median position for every resource, with the displacement and the sample size stated plainly.
Common Error Register
Support-ticket categories mapped to the sequencing mistake that causes each one, with the ticket count before and after a reorder.
Authentication Walkthrough
The one path most integrations take first, plus what an auth failure actually looks like by error type, not just by status code.
Webhook Reference
Signature verification and retry behavior, the two things that generate almost every webhook-related support ticket.
Testing Guide
A pre-launch checklist ordered the same way the guide is, pulling its defensive tests straight from the error register.
A space rule every prompt reads first
A step's position comes from the call-log measurement, never from the spec's own tag order, and moves only when a ticket category confirms it.
How to use it
- 1
Open it in River, or download it
Open the pack and the agent measures your own sandbox logs before writing a single step, or download the blank guide and sheets.
- 2
Send your spec and your call logs
The API specification, sandbox call logs from integrations that reached a real success event, and a support ticket export if you have one.
- 3
Rank each resource by measured first touch
Every resource's documented position checked against its actual median position across the log sample, with the gap recorded rather than assumed.
- 4
Confirm displacement against real tickets, then reorder
Confirmed against a matching error category before it moves, the same way the tutorial and how-to pack checks a step's expected result.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Download the whole pack as Word documents and CSV sheets, no signup and no credit card. Edit with AI is a separate, optional path for anyone who wants the agent to measure their own call logs. Nothing happens until you send it a spec.
We don't have sandbox call logs yet. Can we still use this?
Yes, with a caveat stated on the register itself rather than hidden. Send the spec and name which steps you already suspect developers do out of order, and the guide gets built around that starting point, marked unmeasured until real log data can confirm or correct it.
How is this different from just writing task-based sections?
Task-based structure is the right instinct, and most documentation guidance already recommends it. What it doesn't do is tell you which tasks come first for your specific API. This pack answers that from your own sandbox logs instead of a generic assumed order like authenticate, then send a request, then handle errors.
Does the reorder change our API reference?
No. The reference generated from your OpenAPI spec stays exactly where it is and in whatever order it already renders. Only the guide, the walkthrough steps that tell a reader which order to read that reference in, gets reordered. A new API release is when the release notes pack becomes relevant instead.
How do you tell a real displacement from sampling noise?
By checking it against the Common Error Register before acting on it. A resource touched a step early or late in a small sample can be one unusual integration. A displacement that also matches a named, ticketed error category, at real volume, is the one worth reordering the guide around.
What format are the downloaded files?
Four Word documents and two CSV sheets, zipped. The documents open in Word, Pages and Google Docs; the sheets open in Excel, Numbers and Sheets. Add a PDF query string to the download if you want to circulate the guide rather than fill it in yourself.
How does this relate to the SME interview pack?
Different input. The SME interview pack is for when the facts you need live in an engineer's head and you have fifteen minutes to extract them. This pack's facts live in call logs and tickets you already have, so it measures rather than asks.
Find out which step your integration guide has in the wrong order
Download the blank Integration Guide, Step Register and Error Register as Word and CSV, or have River measure your own sandbox logs and tickets.
Edit with AI