Found at “Deactivating an API, One Step at a Time” on 2024-07-05 14:49:52 +02:00.

There are times when you have to stop serving an API. It might be that you want to replace it with a new, more capable version, or the features the API was providing no longer make sense. Whatever the reasons, what’s important is that no one depends on the API you’re about to kill. Otherwise, the consequences can be unpredictable.

API deactivation stages. The five stages of API deactivation: consumer limitation, consumer discovery, API deprecation, API sunset, and API deactivation. As you progress through the API deactivation stages the number of consumers decreases.