What is API Documentation Standards | AXD Institute?
API Documentation Standards — an AXD Institute resource on agentic experience design, agentic commerce, trust architecture, and human agent interaction. Founded by Tony Wood..
How does AXD differ from traditional UX?
Why is trust architecture important for agentic AI?
Key concepts in API Documentation Standards | AXD Institute
How do how should apis be documented for ai agent consumption relate to agentic commerce?
how should apis be documented for ai agent consumption
what makes api documentation agent-friendly
api documentation support agentic commerce
Agency requires intentional delegation — every agentic system begins with a designed act of delegation
Trust is the primary material — AXD works in trust rather than attention
Absence is the primary use state — the most consequential experiences happen when no one is watching
Relationships have temporality — agentic experiences accumulate history over time
Outcomes replace outputs — AXD designers specify results, not interfaces
Dimension
Traditional UX
Agentic Experience Design (AXD)
Primary material
Attention and affordance
Trust and delegation
User state
Present, navigating
Absent, delegating
Design output
Screens and interfaces
Outcomes and constraints
Temporal model
Session-based
Relationship-based
Success metric
Task completion
Trust calibration
Frequently Asked Questions
How should APIs be documented for AI agent consumption?
APIs for AI agents should be documented with machine-readable specifications (OpenAPI/Swagger), clear capability descriptions, structured error responses, rate limiting information, and authentication requirements. Agent-friendly API documentation enables autonomous discovery and integration without human developer intervention.
What makes API documentation agent-friendly?
Agent-friendly API documentation includes: structured capability descriptions (what the API can do), clear input/output schemas (what data is expected), error taxonomy (what can go wrong and how to handle it), authentication flows (how agents prove identity), and usage policies (rate limits, terms, pricing). All in machine-readable formats.
How does API documentation support agentic commerce?
API documentation supports agentic commerce by enabling AI agents to autonomously discover, evaluate, and integrate with services. Well-documented APIs become the storefronts of the agentic economy - agents can browse capabilities, understand terms, and initiate transactions without human developers writing custom integrations.
Key Takeaways
Agentic Experience Design (AXD) is a new discipline for the age of autonomous AI. It addresses trust architecture, delegation design, and human agent interaction — the core challenges of agentic commerce and agentic shopping.