David Boyne has spent the last few years turning a side project for cataloging events into Event Catalog — an open source documentation tool that is quietly reshaping how teams bring discoverability to distributed and event-driven architectures. In this conversation we work through what Event Catalog actually is, why he treats messages, queries, commands, events, and services as the real primitives, and why supporting OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, and GraphQL side-by-side matters more than picking a winner. David walks through how Domain-Driven Design pulled him toward Event Studio, why business stakeholders are increasingly the unexpected champions, and how he turned an unsponsored project into a sustainable open-core business with license keys rather than a hosted SaaS. We close on what events and rich semantics could mean for AI agents needing context, and what David needs most from the community right now.

Mike Amundsen has been writing about hypermedia, REST, microservices, and the semantics of the web for the better part of two decades. In this conversation we walk the lineage — Paul Otlet, Ted Nelson, Wendy Hall, Leonard Richardson — through hypermedia and into the contemporary conversation around capabilities, affordances, and agentic systems. Mike makes the case that capabilities are not just an architectural pattern but a worldview: the ability to do something, made meaningful through ontology, taxonomy, and choreography. Along the way we talk about what the web has become, why microservices still matter, what "agency" really means in an agentic system, and how to stay grounded — and keep your spark — when the hype cycle pulls everyone toward whatever today's tulip happens to be.

Derek Thompson of Ambassador came by for a discussion about code generation and artificial intelligence. I had began engaging with Derek's team about the importance of maintaining OpenAPI specs while generating code on Bluesky, and they agreed to have Derek come and share more of his expertise with me on the subject. I was very pleased to hear that first, they weren't focused on client SDKs, and they are generating server stubs, mock servers, and all the details that go with that. I was also very satisfied to hear of their embrace of OpenAPI, but also overlays and Arazzo. I enjoyed Derek's expertise in both API but also AI, and his focus on the developer, as well as respect for OpenAPI.

I sat down today with Marc Laventure of Scalar to talk about their API client and documentation offerings, and how they see OpenAPI as a specification. Marc's taken a slightly different approach than other API clients solutions and centering their solutions on just OpenAPI, rather than creating another spec. I feel like it is a sensible approach and can help reduce the complexity across API operations. Marc also shared his vision for their business model and where they will make money, and how they intend to balance that with their very modular and local open-source solutions--which is something I can get behind.

Juan Cruz Viotti of Sourcemeta came by for a conversation about the schema registry solution he had recently built. Juan has gone deep into the JSON Schema rabbit hole, deeper than anyone else I've ever met. His validation tooling and schema registry are providing a new foundation for enterprises to get their schema house in order. This is something Juan and I both agree is the single most foundational thing you can invest in when it comes to API governance. I learn so much everytime I talk to Juan and explore his work, and we will be working together more around the evolution of his schema registry, and API Evangelist will be leaning more into using the JSON Schema educational resources he's contributed to at https://www.learnjsonschema.com/2020-12/.

Frank Kilcommins of SmartBear came by to talk about the OpenAPI Arazzo specification. He shared the history how it came to be and how it is changing the conversation inside and outside the OpenAPI Initiative (OAI). Franks done amazing work to move the API workflows specification over the finish line, but also keep it evolving and moving forward afterwards. The specification has renewed energy with API service providers who are integrating the spec into their API guided walkthroughs, SDK generation, and testing. I am a big fan of Frank's work, and wish we had 10 more of him working at the OpenAPI, so if you are feeling like you have some spare cycles, I recommend you rolling up your sleeves and getting involved. Thanks for coming by and sharing Frank!!

Adron Hall came by for a conversation about trains. Adron and I share a love of transit and trains, who also make their living slinging APIs. Adron had recommended I read Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen E Ambrose and Empire Express by David Haward Bain back a couple of years ago, which I finally did. Then things kept happening with AI and the current presidency that kept reminding me of the stories in these books and I kepting thinking it would be fun to have Adron come by to share his view of things. I won't spoil any of his great stories, but both books and Adron's view of them, as well as his ability to apply in this moment is gold. Adron is a great storyteller and he gets the technology, but he also the business and politics of technology in a way few do, making for a very entertaining 30 minutes.

Tech storyteller and journalist Jennifer Riggins came by for a conversation about why nothing has changed in the world of APIs for the last fifteen years. Jennifer and I go all the way back to the beginning, and she has seen all the same things I've seen. We complained a bit about the impacts of AI, but really that most of the lack of change has been a business thing and not really just technical. I like Jennifer's focus on developers in this moment, and she got me thinking about the relationship between the legacy API management we both have lived through and this new platform reality we operate within. I always enjoy sitting down with Jennifer, and it has been way too long, appreciate you coming by to share some wisdom around why things aren't as progressive as they could be in the API space.

Quobix from from Princess Beef Heavy Industries came by again, this time to talk about OpenAPI Doctor and libopenapi at it's core. I knew "The Doctor" was a modular OpenAPI editor w/ governance built-in, but I didn't realize how deeply modularity is baked into it's design. This modularity allows Quobix to stitch together Vacuum, libopenapi, OpenAPI changes, wiretap, and other Princess Beef Heavy Industries solutions, but also potentially other 3rd party solutions. This modularity in API hubs, dashboards, and tools is fast becoming a common themes in conversations that I am having, and something I am going to work to leverage more as part of my work. This episode went 30 minutes because I wanted to do two separate episoides, 1) OpenAPI, 2) libopenapi, but the stories are so entertwhined we just did it back to back.

Daniel Kocot came by again to talk about the lines between our private and public APIs. We had been talking about internal, first-party, and third-party APIs back and forth on LinkedIn, and I recommended that he come by and we will have a conversation. He helped me realize that my separation between the layers was more about access, control, and velocity over just about being inside or outside the firewall and DMZ. Daniel sees this for what it is--it is about people. Lines of business, teams, tribes, and partners. Daniel has that very outside-in view of API operations, but Codecentric is being brought inside to solve the big problems for their customers. Talking with Daniel makes me realize how important it is to have these conversations about our APIs and portals, because not everyone has a handle on the nuance of what is happening at the edge of our enterprises.