AI Agents Are Your API's Biggest Consumer. Do They Care About Good Design?

We've always designed APIs for humans. A well built API means obsessing over naming conventions, RESTful patterns, and clear documentation because the goal is simple: make systems easy for developers to understand. But AI is changing who the consumer of software is, and developers are asking whether the rules we've followed for decades still hold up. When the primary user of an API is an AI system that reads documentation, adapts to unfamiliar patterns, and experiments when something fails, maybe consistent APIs and clean abstractions don't matter anymore. Everything in me wants to reject this concept. My gut instinct is to say "my APIs need to be pretty or I'll die". I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and unfortunately I think good arguments are made from both angles on this. Let's walk through both sides. The Case for "Abstractions Don't Matter Anymore" Some developers believe AI will reduce the importance of traditional abstractions. I've heard this take a lot. LLMs are ext