Explore Mode

Context

At Akto, we help companies protect their APIs. As organizations' API landscapes grew more complex, we noticed teams struggling to efficiently assess and monitor APIs across different collections. The existing approach wasn't scaling with their needs.

Description

I designed Explore Mode, a feature that helps teams find and organize their API endpoints through a simple condition-based system. The project focused on making API discovery more intuitive while adding smart AI summaries to help users understand their queries better.

<Images of explore mode>

Problem & User goals

In the world of APIs, organizing related endpoints from different collections is crucial. Think of API Groups as smart playlists for your APIs - you might want to group all billing-related APIs from Stripe's Connect, Invoice, Tax, and Capital collections into a single "Billing APIs" group for better monitoring and management as an example.

But here's one of the challenge: Before Explore Mode, creating such groups meant opening each collection individually, selecting APIs, creating a group, switching to another collection, and repeating. It is like trying to build a playlist by switching between different music apps - when all you want is one place to manage your favorite songs.

As a user, I want to:

• Quickly discover APIs across all collections based on my criteria

• Create groups of related endpoints for monitoring

• Share these findings easily with my team

• Update my saved queries as needs evolve

As a team lead, I want to:

• Help my team discover relevant APIs faster

• Ensure consistent understanding of our API landscape

• Reduce time spent on manual API discovery

The challenge wasn't just about organizing APIs - it was about making API discovery and understanding accessible to everyone on the team, regardless of their role.

Explore mode Intro

Think of it like having Google for your APIs - you can ask questions like "Show me all POST endpoints handling user data" or "Find APIs using a specific parameter" and instantly see what exists across your entire ecosystem. Instead of the traditional "collection-by-collection" hunt, we created a unified space where teams could easily discover, understand, and organize APIs using conditions. Whether you're exploring API patterns, saving discoveries as groups, or sharing findings with your team, Explore Mode transforms the way teams interact with their API ecosystem.

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Research

Looking beyond traditional API security tools, I wanted to find inspiration from products that excel at data exploration and filtering. That's when I came across Mixpanel's approach to data analysis - it wasn't a direct competitor, but their solution to a similar problem was enlightening.

What caught my attention was how Mixpanel lets users build customized analytics boards by querying through massive amounts of data using a simple yet powerful filtering system. The way they transformed complex database queries into an intuitive interface where users could progressively add conditions and instantly see results - that was exactly the kind of experience we needed for API exploration.

Taking this inspiration further, I realized we could enhance the experience by adding an AI layer that translates complex conditions into plain English. For example, when a user sets up complex conditions like OR (AND (Method: POST, Path matches regex: /payment/.*/checkout) AND (Method: GET, Path matches regex: /order/.*/status, Host name matches regex: .*billing.api.com)), the AI immediately summarizes it as Finding payment checkout endpoints or order status checks from the billing service - essentially tracking the payment flow APIs. This natural language translation not only helps users verify their queries but also makes it easier for teams to understand shared conditions at a glance, making API exploration more accessible and efficient.

<Image with the above condition in the UI>

Outro

With the explosion of APIs in every company, teams needed a better way to make sense of them all. Explore Mode turned what used to be a frustrating treasure hunt into something as simple as using a search engine, with an AI helper that speaks your language.

As Kendrick puts it: "Look inside of my soul and you can find gold”