API governance
API governance set once, and inherited by every spec you ship
Routebase turns API governance into organization settings, so style guide rules, shared components and header policies cascade to every project, and enforcement is a separate switch you turn on when the team is ready.
14-day Pro trial — no credit card required.
A standard that lives in a wiki decays the day after it is written, and a review board that reads every change turns into a waiting line nobody wants to join. Either way the tenth API drifts from the first while everyone believes they agreed. API governance in Routebase is a set of organization settings that sit next to the specifications they apply to. A decision is made once, inherited by every project, and visible wherever it does not hold yet. Style guide rules carry a severity per rule, set for the organization and overridden per project with a column that says where each value came from. Custom rules add your own conventions from a target, a field and a condition. A shared library and header policies make the agreed shape the easiest one to build. And enforcement on publish is its own switch, off until you decide the team is ready for it.
The standard is a table with a severity per rule
Every built-in rule sits at error, warning, info or off, so the guide records not only what you decided but how much it may cost the person who runs into it.
- Severity set per rule for the organization, overridden per project with a source column reading custom, org or default
- Path naming convention as a choice between kebab-case, camelCase, PascalCase and lowercase, so an existing API keeps the check
- Custom rules from a target, a field and a condition, validated before they are saved and listed with a custom badge
- Rules changed from their default carry an override badge and a one-click reset
API governance checks run where the work happens
Violations appear in the API Designer while you edit, grouped by rule and filterable by severity, and the publish dialog lists whatever is left before a version goes out.
- An issues panel, a header badge and tree badges in the designer, so a finding is visible next to the endpoint it belongs to
- One-click fixes on some rules, such as renaming a path to the convention you set
- The publish dialog lists remaining issues, and with enforcement switched on, error-level findings block the release
- An agent working over MCP sees the same rules, and design_api loads your style guide before it drafts a single endpoint
Reuse removes the violation instead of reporting it
A shared definition makes the agreed shape the easiest one to build, so the library and the header policies remove whole classes of findings before a rule ever fires.
- Organization-wide schemas and responses, linked into any spec and versioned on every save
- Linked specs keep the version they linked, and accept a newer one with a single action
- A schema that proved itself in one spec can be promoted into the library instead of being rewritten
- Header policies apply a set of response headers by status code, cascading from the organization down, with per-response exclusions
Roll it out in the order that keeps the team shipping
The guide measures from the day it is switched on, enforcement is a separate switch, and the quality score shows which spec is furthest from the standard you set.
- Enforce on Publish starts off, so the rules report for as long as you need before anything blocks
- A quality score per spec across style guide, documentation, security and consistency, with weights you set
- Thresholds for quality score and documentation coverage raise alerts, with a live preview of how many specs fall below
- Alerts on breaking changes and on drafts left untouched, and a deprecation policy that sets the floor for every sunset date
Frequently asked questions
What is API governance in Routebase?
It is the set of organization settings that decide how every API in the workspace is designed. That covers the style guide and its severities, the shared library, the header policies, the quality score and the deprecation policy. All of them cascade from the organization to the project and the spec, so a decision is made once and inherited. Nothing here is a review board, because the checks run where the work happens and a person only decides the exceptions.
Do I need an API governance tool if I already run a linter?
A linter checks one document at a time and stops there. API governance tools add what happens around the check. Routebase sets severities for the organization with exceptions per project, removes whole classes of findings through shared components, scores every spec against the same standard and governs deprecations with a policy. Two limits are worth knowing. The configuration lives in the organization rather than in a file in your repository, and rule sets from other linters are expressed again rather than imported.
Does the style guide block publishing?
Only when you switch enforcement on, and it starts off. With Enforce on Publish enabled, error-level violations block a release and the publish dialog says how many have to be fixed, while warnings never block and can be published after a confirmation. A project can lower the severity of any rule for its own specs, so a legacy API keeps the check without stopping every release.
Can I add rules of our own?
Yes. A custom rule targets an endpoint, a schema or the specification, names one field such as the path or the description, and tests it with a regex, a contains, an equals or an exists condition. It carries the category and the severity you choose and sits in the same table as the built-in rules with a custom badge. Anything beyond one field and one condition is not expressible, which is the trade that keeps every rule readable by the next person.
Which plan includes API governance?
The style guide, the governance dashboard with its score and alerts, custom roles and the audit log are part of the Pro plan. Every new workspace starts on a 14-day Pro trial without a credit card. The shared library and header policies are available on every plan, so a standard shape for errors and headers costs nothing to start with.
One living spec
The lifecycle behind it
Change the spec — everything on this page updates with it.
Ready to ship on it?
Routebase is live. Design your API once — docs, mocks, tests, and monitoring all follow from the same source.
14-day Pro trial — no credit card required.