The Hanzo API Gateway

As Hanzo has grown, so has our API surface. Today we are launching the Hanzo API Gateway, a unified layer that improves security, reliability, and developer experience.

Why a Gateway

Over five years, Hanzo accumulated:

47 API endpoints across 8 services
3 authentication methods
Inconsistent rate limiting
Varying response formats

Developers needed expertise in Hanzo internals to use our APIs effectively. That is unacceptable.

Gateway Capabilities

Unified Authentication

One authentication method for all APIs:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_xxx" \
  https://api.hanzo.ai/v1/products

API keys are scoped: read-only, write, or admin. Rotate keys without downtime.

Consistent Rate Limiting

Predictable limits across all endpoints:

Standard: 1000 requests/minute
Burst: 100 requests/second (short bursts allowed)
Enterprise: Custom limits

Rate limit headers on every response:

X-RateLimit-Limit: 1000
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 847
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1550167200

Request Validation

Invalid requests rejected at the gateway with clear errors:

{
  "error": {
    "type": "validation_error",
    "message": "Invalid request body",
    "details": [
      {
        "field": "price",
        "message": "must be a positive number"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response Normalization

All responses follow consistent structure:

{
  "data": { ... },
  "meta": {
    "request_id": "req_abc123",
    "timestamp": "2019-02-14T10:30:00Z"
  }
}

Versioning

API versions in the URL path:

https://api.hanzo.ai/v1/products
https://api.hanzo.ai/v2/products

Old versions supported for 24 months after deprecation announcement.

Developer Experience

Interactive Documentation

New API documentation with:

Try-it-now functionality
Code examples in 8 languages
Response schema explorer
Authentication helper

SDKs Updated

All SDKs updated to use the gateway:

import { Hanzo } from '@hanzo/sdk';

const hanzo = new Hanzo('sk_live_xxx');
const products = await hanzo.products.list();

Webhooks

Gateway-managed webhooks with:

Automatic retries
Signature verification
Event filtering
Delivery logs

Performance

The gateway adds minimal overhead:

p50 latency: +2ms
p99 latency: +8ms

Benefits outweigh the cost:

Caching reduces origin load
Connection pooling improves throughput
Geographic routing reduces round trips

Migration

Existing API endpoints continue working. New gateway endpoints available immediately. Migration deadline: December 2019.

Migration tool checks your integration:

npx @hanzo/migrate check

What's Next

Gateway foundation enables future capabilities:

GraphQL API (coming Q3)
Real-time subscriptions
API analytics dashboard
Custom rate limit rules

The gateway is infrastructure you do not need to think about. It just makes everything work better.

Zach Kelling is the founder of Hanzo Industries.