API Commons

API Commons is a collection of open-source, machine-readable building blocks for API operations — the licenses, schemas, rules, and governance artifacts that let you describe how an API program actually works. Rather than a single specification, it is a growing toolbox of reusable definitions that sit alongside APIs.json and translate the human-readable aspects of an API program into artifacts an agent or pipeline can act on.

• Reusable building blocks - Schemas, licenses, rules, and definitions you can pick up and drop into your own operations instead of reinventing them.
• Machine-readable governance - Governance rules and policies expressed as artifacts a linter or agent can enforce, not just prose in a wiki.
• Works with APIs.json - Indexed and referenced through APIs.json so the building blocks travel with the API they describe.
• Open and forkable - Published in the open so teams can adopt, extend, and contribute back the pieces they need.

In practice, API Commons is where I keep the governance and discovery tooling I use across API Evangelist — rule registries, install interfaces, and the definitions that let agents know what they are allowed to consume before they act. As the agentic turn pushes more automation into how APIs get built and integrated, having these operational rules available as open, machine-readable commons is what keeps governance ahead of the code rather than bolted on after.