Solid advice, especially the point about starting with authentication before anything else. I build automation workflows that connect to dozens of APIs, and auth is always the first thing I verify. One tip I'd add: always check for rate limit headers in the response (X-RateLimit-Remaining, Retry-After). Most docs mention rate limits once in a sidebar, but in production those headers are your lifeline for building resilient integrations. Also, Postman collections or OpenAPI specs (when available) save massive time — import them and you skip half the guesswork on request/response shapes. Great thread for anyone starting their API journey.