# About the API Working Group category

**URL:** <https://forum.p4.org/t/about-the-api-working-group-category/35>\
**Category:** API Working Group\
**Created:** [May 5, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://forum.p4.org/t/about-the-api-working-group-category/35 "2021-05-05T22:32:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![judysnow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@judysnow](https://forum.p4.org/u/judysnow)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://forum.p4.org/t/about-the-api-working-group-category/35/1 "2021-05-05T22:32:09Z")

</div>

The API Working Group manages P4 APIs, including the P4Runtime control plane API.

P4Runtime [charter](https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/blob/main/api/P4_API_WG_announcement_05_17_2017.pdf) and [repository](https://github.com/p4lang/p4runtime)

Scope of the standard runtime APIs is to provide standard means for:

- local control (NOS integration) =\> silicon independence
- remote control (SDN controller integration) =\> switch vendor independence
- Runtime management of P4 tables
- Runtime management of Portable Standard Architecture (PSA) externs (e.g. Counter, Meter, ActionProfile, …)
- Ability to extend the API to support vendor-specific externs
- Minimal session management (remote API only)