APIs play a crucial role in the digital economy, and effective API management is essential for the success of modern applications and businesses. A new guide, released through a collaboration between Kong and Apollo, delves into building and managing next-generation API platforms with GraphQL. The document offers a comprehensive technical examination intended for API practitioners, addressing the challenges that microservice architectures pose to engineering teams. It highlights the importance of three key components of a modern API platform: API gateways for mediating between consumers and producers, GraphQL supergraphs as an access layer for client teams, and service mesh as the foundational microservice layer. The guide provides a reference architecture that explores strategies for building, deploying, and operating APIs, emphasizing the complementary nature of Kong and Apollo technologies. The document positions the companies' SaaS offerings as an optimal solution for constructing secure and dynamic API platforms, encouraging readers to download the guide and participate in advancing API technology.