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Why we stopped using SDKs
Developers are increasingly bypassing vendor-provided SDKs in favor of tailored REST wrappers, citing better observability and lower integration overhead.
What: Alvin Sng describes migrating away from heavy SDKs (Stripe, Slack, WorkOS) to thin, custom HTTP wrappers, arguing that AI-assisted code generation makes manual API implementation more efficient and maintainable.
Why it matters: This suggests a shift against the 'SDK-first' development pattern as developers prioritize lean dependencies and unified observability patterns over monolithic, black-box client libraries.
Takeaway: If your project suffers from complex dependency trees, prototype replacing a frequently updated SDK with a minimal, typed wrapper that calls the underlying REST API directly.
Deep dive
- SDKs often introduce unnecessary abstraction layers and versioning bloat.
- REST wrappers provide more granular control over error handling and logging.
- AI makes the boilerplate of writing custom API clients trivial to generate and maintain.
- Replacing SDKs allows for unified observability across different vendor services.
- The future model may involve 'agent skills'—code blocks that teach AI how to interact with specific APIs rather than importing packages.
Decoder
- SDK (Software Development Kit): A pre-packaged set of tools, libraries, and documentation provided by a vendor to simplify interacting with their API.
- Observability: The ability to infer the internal state of a system based on its external outputs, typically involving logs, metrics, and traces.
Original article
Why we stopped using SDKs
We stopped using the Stripe, WorkOS, and Slack client SDKs and are in the process of migrating the rest away. Instead, we call their REST APIs directly through a small wrapper class we call...
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