Notifyhub_public_api_docs_plan

NotifyHub Public API Documentation - Structure & Plan

Overview

This document outlines the complete structure and content plan for NotifyHub's public API documentation, designed for external developers integrating with the NotifyHub platform.

Documentation Structure

1. Getting Started (Essential First Steps)

  • Introduction

    • What is NotifyHub?
    • Key features overview
    • Supported channels (SMS, Email, WhatsApp)

  • Quick Start Guide

    • Sign up process
    • Get your API credentials
    • Make your first API call (complete example)
    • Understanding responses

  • Authentication

    • How JWT authentication works
    • Login endpoint
    • Including tokens in requests
    • Token expiration and refresh

2. Core Concepts (Understanding the Platform)

  • Multi-tenancy & Organizations

    • How organizations work
    • Organization-scoped operations
    • Managing organization credentials

  • Users & Roles

    • Admin vs User roles
    • Team member management
    • Role-based permissions

  • Contacts & Groups

    • Managing recipients
    • Organizing contacts into groups
    • Contact attributes

  • Channels

    • SMS via Lancola
    • Email via SMTP
    • WhatsApp via Meta Cloud API
    • Channel-specific requirements

3. API Reference (Complete Endpoint Documentation)

3.1 Authentication Endpoints

  • POST /auth/signup - Register new organization
  • POST /auth/login - Authenticate and get token

3.2 User Management

  • GET /users - List team members
  • GET /users/me - Get current user profile
  • POST /users - Create new team member
  • PUT /users/:id - Update user details
  • PUT /users/:id/deactivate - Deactivate user
  • PUT /users/:id/reactivate - Reactivate user
  • DELETE /users/:id - Delete user
  • PUT /users/:id/password - Change password

3.3 Organization Management

  • GET /organizations/current - Get organization details
  • PUT /organizations/current/credentials - Update channel credentials

3.4 Contact Management

  • POST /contacts - Create new contact
  • GET /contacts - List all contacts
  • GET /contacts/:id - Get contact details
  • PUT /contacts/:id - Update contact
  • DELETE /contacts/:id - Delete contact

3.5 Group Management

  • POST /groups - Create new group
  • GET /groups - List all groups
  • DELETE /groups/:id - Delete group

3.6 Messaging (Notifications)

  • POST /notifications/send - Send single or bulk notification
  • POST /notifications/send-to-all - Send to all contacts

3.7 Campaign Management

  • POST /campaigns - Create campaign
  • GET /campaigns - List campaigns
  • GET /campaigns/:id - Get campaign details
  • PUT /campaigns/:id - Update campaign
  • POST /campaigns/:id/launch - Launch campaign
  • POST /campaigns/:id/cancel - Cancel campaign

3.8 Message Logs & Analytics

  • GET /message-logs - Retrieve message history

4. Channel-Specific Guides (Deep Dives)

4.1 SMS Integration

  • Requirements (phone format, message length)
  • Lancola SMS configuration
  • Example requests
  • Error handling
  • Best practices

4.2 Email Integration

  • SMTP configuration
  • HTML vs plain text
  • Attachments (base64 encoding)
  • Sender name customization
  • Example requests
  • Troubleshooting delivery issues

4.3 WhatsApp Integration

  • Meta Cloud API setup
  • Template vs free-form messages
  • Phone number formatting
  • 24-hour messaging window
  • Example requests
  • Common issues

5. Advanced Features

5.1 Campaigns

  • When to use campaigns vs direct messaging
  • Campaign types (broadcast, targeted, automated)
  • Scheduling campaigns
  • Multi-channel campaigns
  • Recipient targeting (all, selected, groups)
  • Campaign analytics

5.2 Templates (Future Feature)

  • Creating reusable templates
  • Variable substitution
  • Template management

5.3 Analytics & Reporting

  • Understanding message logs
  • Filtering and querying logs
  • Campaign performance metrics
  • Delivery status tracking

6. Credential Management

6.1 Organization-Level Credentials

  • Overriding default credentials
  • SMS credentials (API key, partner ID, shortcode)
  • Email credentials (SMTP host, port, auth)
  • WhatsApp credentials (access token, phone number ID)
  • Security best practices

6.2 Fallback Mechanism

  • How credential resolution works
  • Org-specific vs system defaults

7. Code Examples & SDKs

7.1 cURL Examples

  • All major endpoints with complete examples

7.2 JavaScript/Node.js

  • Complete integration examples
  • Error handling patterns
  • Async/await best practices

7.3 Python

  • Requests library examples
  • Complete workflow examples

7.4 PHP

  • cURL-based examples
  • Common use cases

7.5 Other Languages (Future)

  • Java, Ruby, Go examples

8. Error Handling

8.1 HTTP Status Codes

  • 200 OK
  • 201 Created
  • 400 Bad Request
  • 401 Unauthorized
  • 403 Forbidden
  • 404 Not Found
  • 500 Internal Server Error

8.2 Error Response Format

  • Standard error structure
  • Error messages
  • Validation errors

8.3 Common Errors & Solutions

  • Authentication failures
  • Invalid recipient formats
  • Missing required fields
  • Channel-specific errors

9. Rate Limits & Best Practices

9.1 Rate Limiting

  • Current provider limits
  • Future platform limits
  • Handling rate limit errors

9.2 Best Practices

  • Batch sending strategies
  • Error retry logic
  • Webhook integration (future)
  • Deduplication
  • Phone number normalization

10. Webhooks (Future Feature)

  • Delivery status callbacks
  • Event types
  • Webhook signature verification
  • Retry logic

11. Appendices

11.1 API Changelog

  • Version history
  • Breaking changes
  • Deprecation notices

11.2 Glossary

  • Key terms and definitions

11.3 FAQs

  • Common questions and answers

11.4 Support & Resources

  • Contact information
  • Community forums
  • Status page
  • GitHub repository (if applicable)

Content Format for Each Endpoint

Every API endpoint documentation should include:

Endpoint Template:

## [METHOD] /endpoint-path

**Description**: Brief description of what this endpoint does

**Authentication**: Required/Not Required

**Authorization**: Admin only / Any authenticated user

**Rate Limit**: X requests per minute (if applicable)

### Request

**Headers:**
- `Authorization: Bearer <token>` (if required)
- `Content-Type: application/json`

**Path Parameters:** (if applicable)
- `id` (string, required) - Description

**Query Parameters:** (if applicable)
- `filter` (string, optional) - Description
- `page` (integer, optional) - Default: 1

**Request Body:**
```json
{
  "field1": "value",
  "field2": "value"
}

Field Descriptions:

  • field1 (string, required) - Description
  • field2 (string, optional) - Description, default: "value"

Response

Success Response (200/201):

{
  "data": {},
  "message": "Success"
}

Error Responses:

400 Bad Request:

{
  "statusCode": 400,
  "message": "Validation failed",
  "error": "Bad Request"
}

401 Unauthorized:

{
  "statusCode": 401,
  "message": "Invalid token",
  "error": "Unauthorized"
}

Example Usage

cURL:

curl -X POST https://api.notifyhub.com/endpoint \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"field1": "value"}'

JavaScript:

const response = await fetch('https://api.notifyhub.com/endpoint', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_TOKEN',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    field1: 'value'
  })
});

Python:

import requests
 
response = requests.post(
    'https://api.notifyhub.com/endpoint',
    headers={
        'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_TOKEN',
        'Content-Type': 'application/json'
    },
    json={
        'field1': 'value'
    }
)

---

## Documentation Platform Recommendations

### Option 1: **GitBook** (Recommended)
- ✅ Beautiful, searchable interface
- ✅ Version control integration
- ✅ Easy to update
- ✅ Built-in search
- ✅ Code syntax highlighting
- ✅ Free tier available

### Option 2: **ReadTheDocs**
- ✅ Open source friendly
- ✅ Great for technical docs
- ✅ Versioning support
- ✅ Free for open source

### Option 3: **Docusaurus** (Facebook's tool)
- ✅ React-based
- ✅ Highly customizable
- ✅ Great search
- ✅ Free and open source

### Option 4: **Swagger/OpenAPI**
- ✅ Interactive API explorer
- ✅ Auto-generated from code
- ✅ Try-it-out functionality
- ⚠️ Requires OpenAPI spec

### Option 5: **Custom Documentation Site**
- ✅ Full control
- ✅ Brand consistency
- ⚠️ More maintenance

---

## Key Principles for Public Documentation

1. **User-Focused**: Write for developers who have never seen your system
2. **Complete Examples**: Every endpoint should have working code examples
3. **Clear Error Messages**: Document every possible error with solutions
4. **Security First**: Emphasize credential protection
5. **Progressive Disclosure**: Start simple, add complexity gradually
6. **Search-Friendly**: Use clear headers and keywords
7. **Copy-Paste Ready**: All examples should work with minimal modification
8. **Keep Updated**: Version control and changelog are essential

---

## What to EXCLUDE from Public Docs

- Internal architecture details
- Database schemas (unless relevant for webhooks)
- NestJS-specific implementation
- Internal folder structures
- Development workflows
- Testing strategies
- Deployment processes
- Internal environment variables

---

## Priority Order for Documentation

### Phase 1 (MVP - Launch Ready):
1. Getting Started
2. Authentication
3. Core messaging endpoints (POST /notifications/send)
4. Contact management basics
5. Error handling guide
6. Code examples (cURL, JavaScript, Python)

### Phase 2 (Post-Launch):
7. Campaign management
8. Groups management
9. Message logs & analytics
10. Organization credential management
11. Advanced features

### Phase 3 (Growth):
12. Webhooks
13. Templates
14. SDKs
15. Community examples
16. Video tutorials

---

## Next Steps

1. **Choose Documentation Platform** - Recommend GitBook or Docusaurus
2. **Create Documentation Repository** - Version control for docs
3. **Set Up Documentation Structure** - Create folder/page hierarchy
4. **Write Content Section by Section** - Start with Phase 1
5. **Add Interactive Examples** - Postman collection, OpenAPI spec
6. **Beta Test with External Developers** - Get feedback
7. **Launch Documentation** - docs.notifyhub.com
8. **Continuous Updates** - Keep synchronized with API changes

---

## Estimated Timeline

- **Phase 1 Documentation**: 2-3 weeks (MVP)
- **Phase 2 Documentation**: 2-3 weeks (Post-launch)
- **Phase 3 Documentation**: Ongoing (as features ship)

---

## Success Metrics

- Time to first successful API call (goal: < 10 minutes)
- Support ticket reduction (goal: 50% fewer "how to" questions)
- Developer satisfaction score (goal: 4.5/5)
- Documentation page views and search queries
- Example code copy rates