How Does an API Work?

Imagine that you’re sitting at a table in a restaurant, with a menu of choices to order from. The kitchen is the part of the “system” that will prepare your order. What’s missing is the critical link to communicate your order to the kitchen and deliver your food back to your table.

That’s where the waiter, or API, comes in. The waiter is the messenger (or API), that takes your request and tells the kitchen (the system) what to do.

Then the waiter delivers the response back to you — in this case, it is the food.