I'm building a platform to manage keys, docs, and rate limits for APIs, any recommendations?

Yes — for a platform that manages API keys, documentation, and rate limits, I’d recommend designing it as a developer portal + gateway control plane. The main goal is to make it easy for API consumers to onboard, self-serve, and understand usage, while giving you strong control and auditability.

Core capabilities to include

1. API key management

• Key creation, rotation, revocation
• Scoped permissions per app/team/environment
• Key expiration policies
• Multiple key types:
  • public/client IDs
  • secret keys
  • machine-to-machine credentials
• Audit logs for who created/changed what
• Support for key hashing at rest, never storing raw secrets after creation

2. Documentation portal

• Interactive docs from OpenAPI/Swagger specs
• Versioned docs per API
• Code samples in multiple languages
• Authentication instructions
• Changelog / release notes
• “Try it out” sandbox with separate test credentials
• Search across endpoints, schemas, and examples

3. Rate limiting and quotas

• Per API key, app, user, IP, org, and endpoint limits
• Burst + sustained limits
• Monthly quotas and usage caps
• Tier-based plans with different limits
• Soft limit warnings and hard limit enforcement
• Real-time usage dashboards
• Clear error responses like 429 Too Many Requests with retry guidance

4. Developer onboarding

• Self-serve registration and app creation
• Approval workflows for sensitive APIs
• Email/domain/org verification if needed
• Environment separation: sandbox vs production
• Consent and terms acceptance tracking

5. Analytics and observability

• Request volume, latency, errors, top endpoints
• Per-consumer usage trends
• Key usage anomalies / abuse detection
• Export to logs/metrics systems
• Alerts for spikes, failures, or nearing quota limits

6. Security and compliance

• RBAC/ABAC for internal admin access
• MFA for admin portal
• Secret scanning and leak detection
• Encryption at rest and in transit
• PCI/SOC2/GDPR-friendly audit trails
• IP allowlists, mTLS, JWT/OAuth support if needed

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Good architecture approach

A. API Gateway / enforcement layer

Use a gateway or proxy to enforce:

• auth
• quota
• throttling
• request validation
• routing

Examples:

• Kong
• Apigee
• Tyk
• AWS API Gateway
• Azure API Management
• NGINX + custom services
• Envoy-based setup

B. Control plane

This is your management layer:

• key issuance
• plans and policies
• docs metadata
• analytics config
• admin UI/API

C. Data stores

• Relational DB for orgs, apps, keys metadata, policies
• Secret store or KMS for sensitive material
• Redis or similar for fast rate-limit counters
• Event/log pipeline for usage analytics

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Product recommendations by priority

If you’re early-stage, focus on:

1. Self-service API key issuance
2. Interactive docs
3. Simple usage dashboard
4. Basic rate limiting
5. Key rotation and revocation
6. Versioning and sandbox environments

If you’re enterprise-focused, add:

• SSO/SAML
• SCIM provisioning
• custom roles
• approval workflows
• IP restrictions
• audit exports
• SLA/plan enforcement

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UX recommendations

• Make key creation dead simple
• Show the “secret” only once
• Provide copy-paste auth examples
• Display current usage vs quota prominently
• Explain rate limit errors clearly
• Offer test credentials and sandbox endpoints
• Make docs searchable and version-aware

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Common pitfalls to avoid

• Storing raw API secrets in plaintext
• Mixing sandbox and production keys
• Making docs static and outdated
• Exposing too much internal detail in rate-limit errors
• Having no rotation or revocation path
• Not correlating usage back to customer/app
• Building custom rate limiting without proper edge enforcement

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If you want a very practical stack

A common modern stack could be:

• Frontend: Next.js / React
• Backend: Node.js, Go, or Python
• Auth: OAuth2/OIDC + JWT
• Docs: OpenAPI + Redoc/Swagger UI
• Rate limiting: Redis-backed counters + gateway
• DB: Postgres
• Secrets: KMS/Vault
• Analytics: ClickHouse / BigQuery / Postgres for smaller scale
• Infra: Kubernetes or managed cloud gateway

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If you want, I can also help you with:

1. a feature roadmap
2. a system architecture diagram
3. a database schema
4. a MVP scope
5. a recommended tech stack based on your cloud/provider