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APIM Concepts Glossary

A quick reference to Azure API Management (APIM) terminology for developers new to the platform. Each term includes how it appears in apiops-cli artifacts.

For comprehensive documentation, see Azure API Management documentation.

Terms

API

A REST, SOAP, GraphQL, or WebSocket endpoint definition managed by APIM. Each API has a base path, one or more protocols, and a set of operations.

API Operation

An individual endpoint within an API — a specific HTTP method + URL path combination (e.g., GET /pets, POST /orders).

  • Microsoft Docs: API operations
  • In artifacts: apis/{api}/operations/{operation}/ — operations have no info file, only policy.xml if a policy is set

Product

A bundle of one or more APIs with access policies and subscription requirements. Products control which APIs are available to developers and under what terms.

  • Microsoft Docs: Products
  • In artifacts: products/{name}/productInformation.json, with apis.json and groups.json for associations

Subscription

An access key pair (primary + secondary) that developers use to call APIs through products. Subscriptions enforce usage quotas and rate limits.

  • Microsoft Docs: Subscriptions
  • In artifacts: subscriptions/{name}/subscriptionInformation.json

Named Value

A key-value store for reusable configuration data — connection strings, API keys, feature flags. Named values can reference Azure Key Vault secrets for secure storage.

  • Microsoft Docs: Named values
  • In artifacts: namedValues/{name}/namedValueInformation.json

Backend

A backend service definition specifying the URL and optional credentials for the service behind an API. Policies use set-backend-service to route requests.

  • Microsoft Docs: Backends
  • In artifacts: backends/{name}/backendInformation.json

Policy

XML-based middleware that runs on API requests and responses. Policies handle rate limiting, caching, request/response transformation, authentication, and more. Policies apply at four scopes: service (global), product, API, and operation.

  • Microsoft Docs: Policies
  • In artifacts: policy.xml at the relevant scope (root, apis/{name}/, apis/{name}/operations/{op}/, products/{name}/)

Policy Fragment

A reusable snippet of policy XML that can be included in other policies via <include-fragment>. Useful for shared logic like standard rate limiting or CORS headers.

  • Microsoft Docs: Policy fragments
  • In artifacts: policyFragments/{name}/policyFragmentInformation.json

Tag

A label for organizing APIs, products, and operations. Tags appear in the developer portal for navigation and grouping.

  • Microsoft Docs: Tags
  • In artifacts: tags/{name}/tagInformation.json (service-level), apis/{api}/tags/{tag}/tagInformation.json (API-level)

Logger

A logging target — typically Azure Application Insights or Azure Event Hub. Loggers define where diagnostic data is sent.

  • Microsoft Docs: Logging
  • In artifacts: loggers/{name}/loggerInformation.json

Diagnostic

A logging configuration that links a logger to an API (or the entire service). Diagnostics control what gets logged — headers, body, sampling rate.

  • Microsoft Docs: Diagnostics
  • In artifacts: diagnostics/{name}/diagnosticInformation.json (service-level), apis/{api}/diagnostics/{name}/diagnosticInformation.json (API-level)

Gateway

A self-hosted gateway for running APIM in hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Self-hosted gateways run as containers on your infrastructure while managed by your APIM instance.

  • Microsoft Docs: Self-hosted gateway
  • In artifacts: gateways/{name}/gatewayInformation.json, with apis.json for gateway-API associations

Version Set

A versioning strategy for APIs. Defines how API versions are differentiated — by URL path segment, query string parameter, or HTTP header.

  • Microsoft Docs: API versioning
  • In artifacts: versionSets/{name}/versionSetInformation.json

Group

A developer group used for product access control. Built-in groups include Administrators, Developers, and Guests. Custom groups restrict which products specific developers can access.

  • Microsoft Docs: Groups
  • In artifacts: groups/{name}/groupInformation.json

Global Schema

A shared JSON or XML schema that can be referenced across multiple APIs for request/response validation.

  • Microsoft Docs: Schemas
  • In artifacts: schemas/{name}/schemaInformation.json

Workspace

An isolated environment within a single APIM instance. Workspaces allow separate teams to manage their own APIs, products, and policies independently.

  • Microsoft Docs: Workspaces
  • In artifacts: Extracted when included in the workspaceNames filter

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