What is Stage in API Gateway: Definition and Usage

In AWS API Gateway, a stage is a named reference to a deployment of your API. It acts like a version or environment (such as dev, test, or prod) where you can configure settings and access your API endpoints.

How It Works

Think of a stage in API Gateway like a labeled checkpoint or environment for your API. When you create or update your API, you deploy it to a stage. This stage then holds a snapshot of your API configuration and code at that moment.

Just like a restaurant might have different menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, API Gateway stages let you have different versions of your API running simultaneously. Each stage has its own URL and settings, so you can test new features in a dev stage without affecting the live prod stage.

Example

This example shows how to create a deployment with a stage named dev for an API using AWS CLI.

bash

aws apigateway create-deployment --rest-api-id a1b2c3d4 --stage-name dev

Output

{
  "id": "xyz123",
  "createdDate": "2024-06-01T12:00:00Z",
  "apiSummary": { ... }
}

When to Use

Use stages to manage different environments of your API, such as development, testing, and production. This helps you safely test changes before making them live.

For example, you might deploy a new feature to a test stage to let your team try it out. Once verified, you deploy the same API version to the prod stage for your users.

Stages also allow you to configure settings like logging, throttling, and caching independently for each environment.

Key Points

• A stage is a named snapshot of your API deployment.
• Each stage has its own URL and settings.
• Stages help separate environments like dev, test, and prod.
• You can configure logging and throttling per stage.

Key Takeaways

A stage in API Gateway represents a deployed version of your API with its own settings.

Stages let you run multiple environments like development and production simultaneously.

Use stages to safely test and release API changes without affecting live users.

Each stage has a unique URL to access the deployed API version.

You can customize logging, caching, and throttling per stage for better control.