Best Practices in SDK Development
Dec 5, 2025 ·
I gave this talk at BuildStuff 2025. It’s a longer version of the talk I gave at SwiftLeeds in October and goes deeper into the discussions on API Design, System Design, Testing, and Versioning.
Abstract
Modern software increasingly relies on open-source and commercial, closed-source libraries, yet creating a maintainable, developer-friendly SDK remains a challenge.
This talk delves into best practices that differentiate great SDKs from good ones, and explores many critical aspects of SDK development. We’ll look at how to design intuitive APIs and structure the API surface for discoverability, and how to create a system design that scales over time, with tests that ensure SDK and API reliability. We’ll also cover semantic versioning, and deprecations.
Whether you’re maintaining an existing SDK or planning a new one, you’ll walk away with insights to create SDKs that developers trust and enjoy using.
Images
I'm terribly bad at taking pictures while traveling, so if you do have any nice pictures of us together, feel free to send them my way.
Discussions & More
If you think this talk sounds interesting and want to book me for a conference or company event, please reach out on Bluesky or Mastodon, or send me an e-mail.