API providers should be afraid to make contact information to consumers, making it easy to access a contact form, email address, or other way to contact. Contact information is often replace with forums and other self-service way to engage with a community, but nothing replaces a form or email.

Also known as: Contact Info, Reach Us, Get in Touch

Example

- type: Contact
  url: https://developers.example.com/contact

Standards

• schema.org schema.org ContactPoint
• IETF vCard Format Specification (RFC 6350)
• IETF RFC 6068 — mailto URI scheme
• IETF RFC 3966 — tel URI for telephone numbers
• IETF RFC 9116 — A File Format to Aid in Security Vulnerability Disclosure (security.txt)
• IANA IANA Link Relation — author

Well-Known Paths

• /.well-known/security.txt — RFC 9116 — Security contact and disclosure policy for the domain.

Media Types

• text/vcard — RFC 6350
• application/vcard+json — RFC 7095 — jCard JSON serialization of vCard.

OpenAPI Expression

• info.contact.name (OpenAPI 3.x)
• info.contact.url (OpenAPI 3.x)
• info.contact.email (OpenAPI 3.x)

Link Relations

• author — IANA / HTML

Governance Rules

• oas-info-contact (Spectral built-in) — info.contact MUST be present.
• oas-info-contact-properties (Spectral built-in) — info.contact should include name, url, and email.
• oas-contact-properties (Spectral (built-in alias)) — Encourages a complete contact block instead of a single field.

Risk & Compliance

Compliance:

• GDPR Art. 13/14 — identity and contact details of the controller must be provided
• CAN-SPAM / GDPR — published email addresses become regulated channels

Security: Public mailboxes invite phishing and spam; pair with security.txt (RFC 9116) so vulnerability reports have a dedicated, monitored channel separate from general support.

Tools

• securitytxt.org — security.txt generator
• vCard validators — Format reference

Suggested Metrics

• contact_form_submissions — Volume of contact-form leads per period.
• response_time_p50_hours — Median time to respond to inbound contact.
• bounce_rate — Share of emails to listed mailbox that bounce — early signal of stale info.

Example Implementations

• Stripe — info.contact in OpenAPI plus a dedicated sales/support contact page.
• GitHub — Publishes /.well-known/security.txt with a dedicated security contact.
• Google — Contact pathways differ per product area; [email protected] for vuln reports.

Related Properties

• Support
• Forums
• Security
• Terms of service

Tags

• Contact
• Communication

All Common Properties