OpenAPI didn’t exist in the early 1990s, but the Web’s first standards—URLs, HTTP, MIME types, and simple server-side interfaces—introduced the core idea that an API can be described consistently. This chapter traces the roots of standardized API descriptions from 1990 to 1994.
Long before Twilio made communications programmable, the early Web (1990–1994) established the practical building blocks of web APIs: URL addressing, request/response patterns, and simple server interfaces that taught developers how to “call” a service over HTTP.
A chronological look at 1990–1994, when the Web’s earliest HTTP interfaces and URL conventions laid the groundwork for modern web APIs—providing historical context for developer-first platforms like Stripe.
From URLs and early HTTP methods to CGI and the first dynamic web interactions, the 1990–1994 era laid the interface patterns that later powered Twitter API integrations and modern social platform APIs.
Between 1990 and 1994, the Web’s simplest building blocks—URLs, HTTP requests, and server-side gateway scripts—quietly formed the earliest “public web APIs.” This chapter traces how those early interfaces made proto-mashups possible long before the term existed.