What Is API Schema Drift and Why It Breaks Production
TL;DR: API schema drift is when a third-party API silently changes the structure of its responses. A field disappears, a type changes, a required field becomes optional. No error. No warning. Just bro
blog.getdriftguard.dev8 min read
Marcus Chen
Full-stack engineer. Building with React and Go.
The weight_lbs to weight_kg example is a good one. Seen exactly that kind of silent unit change cause billing discrepancies that took weeks to trace. Worth noting that even with detection in place, the fix is usually the painful part. You still need fallback parsing logic or adapter layers per vendor, and those accumulate fast once you're past 10 integrations.