Starting with the Maya Developer Hub can be overwhelming.
You might have different guides to go through, multiple APIs to choose from, technical requirements to understand, and a lot of questions about where to start.
If you’re building with Maya, you don’t necessarily have to figure it all out on your own.
The Maya Developer Hub and Maya Developer Forum can help you move through the different stages of your integration – from figuring out what you need, to understanding a product, building your integration, testing it, and getting help when you get stuck.
Here’s one way to approach it.
1. Start with discovery
Before looking at API endpoints, start with a simpler question:
What Maya solution actually fits my use case?
The Maya Developer Hub landing page is a good starting point.
You can also check the Product API Catalog to see the available APIs and solutions. Think of the catalog as a map of what’s available.
At this stage, you don’t need to understand every API. You’re simply narrowing down your options based on what you’re trying to build.
For example, you might be:
- Adding payments to an application
- Building a checkout experience
- Accepting different payment methods
- Exploring Maya APIs for a new project
Tip: Start with your use case rather than an API endpoint. Once you know what you’re trying to accomplish, it’s easier to determine which product or solution to explore.
2. Understand the product before diving into the API
Once you’ve identified a potential solution, don’t feel like you need to jump straight into the technical documentation.
Start with the Product Guide.
Product Guides provide context around what a product does, the capabilities it provides, and the problems it is designed to solve.
This can help answer an important question before you start coding:
Is this actually the right solution for what I’m trying to build?
For example, you may encounter concepts such as tokenization, vaulting, payment intents, or capture flows in technical documentation. Understanding the product and its use cases first can make those technical concepts easier to put into context.
A few minutes spent understanding the product can also help prevent building an integration around the wrong assumptions.
3. Move to the Technical Guide when you’re ready to build
Once you’ve established that the product fits your use case, move on to the Technical Guide.
This is where you’ll find the details needed to implement the integration, including things like:
- API endpoints
- Authentication
- Required parameters and fields
- Request and response examples
- API call sequences
- Implementation requirements
Pay particular attention to the sequence of API calls. Knowing which API to call, and when to call it, can make a significant difference when you’re putting an integration together.
Instead of figuring out the flow endpoint by endpoint, you can use the documented sequence as a reference for your implementation.
4. Test before going to production
You don’t always need a complete application to start experimenting with an API.
If you’re trying to understand how an endpoint behaves, the Try It feature in the Maya Developer Hub can help you make a request and inspect the response directly.
You can use it to:
- Test an endpoint
- Inspect API responses
- Validate your understanding of the documentation
- Experiment before writing the full integration
For broader integration testing, the Maya Business Manager Developer Sandbox allows developers to create sandbox applications and manage credentials.
You can also refer to the Sandbox Accounts and Credentials documentation in the Developer Hub when setting up your testing environment.
The general idea is simple: Experiment in the sandbox before making changes in production.
It gives you a place to validate your implementation and troubleshoot issues without affecting live transactions.
5. When documentation isn’t enough, search the Forum
Even with good documentation, you’ll eventually encounter a question that isn’t answered by a guide.
That’s where the Maya Developer Forum can be useful.
Before creating a new question, try searching the Forum first. Someone may have already encountered a similar issue.
You can use the Forum to:
- Search existing questions and discussions
- Ask about implementation issues
- Share solutions and workarounds
- Learn from other developers’ experiences
- Help other developers who encounter the same problem
Documentation explains the intended integration path.
Community discussions can sometimes provide additional context around the problems developers encounter while implementing it.
And if you can’t find the answer you’re looking for, ask.
When posting a technical question, including details such as the API you’re using, what you’re trying to accomplish, what you’ve tried, and any relevant error messages can make it easier for others to understand the problem.
A simple way to think about the journey
If you’re new to Maya, you can think about the different resources this way:
Discover → Understand → Build → Test → Ask
Developer Hub / API Catalog
→ What solutions are available?
Product Guide
→ What does the product do, and is it right for my use case?
Technical Guide
→ How do I implement it?
Try It / Sandbox
→ Does my implementation work?
Developer Forum
→ What if I get stuck or want to learn from other developers?
You don’t necessarily have to follow these steps in exactly this order. You might jump back to the Product Guide while implementing, or search the Forum while you’re still evaluating a solution.
The important thing is knowing where to look for the type of question you’re trying to answer.
Over to the community
Everyone has a different way of approaching guides and documentation platform.
Some needs decision guidance before diving deeper into technical documentation. Others prefer quick start, API examples, sample applications, interactive tools, diagrams, or community discussions.
What helps you most when you’re integrating with a new platform?
For example:
- Feature comparison?
- Clearer onboarding?
- Better API flow diagrams?
- More code samples?
- Sample applications?
- Interactive API testing?
- Better search?
- Faster answers from the community?
- Something else you’ve experienced on another developer platform?
Share your experiences below. Your feedback could also help other developers figure out where to start—and help us understand where the Maya developer experience can improve.