Be a user of your own API

[konklone]

A strong recommendation that API producers should, if at all possible, have an in-house product that is itself a client of the API. "Dogfooding" may be a cliche, but it's an important grounding effect, and keeps the API design from veering off into theory and premature optimization.

[adelevie]

Does writing a client lib against your own API count?

[konklone]

No, not really.

[gbinal]

Agreed. The importance is to have it be something that your own team relies on. A client library is more along the lines of what the team is still offering out to the community.