Scope the shared job before you write the plugin
The partnership is the job the two products do together. The plugin, API, or marketplace app is only the surface that makes that job real.
Teams start with the surface. An App Store listing. A REST wrapper. A marketplace card. Then they wonder why nobody uses it. Usage follows a job, not a logo lockup. Scope the job first: what the two products do together that neither does alone. Then pick the thinnest surface that makes that job runnable.
That surface might be a marketplace app, a direct API, or a webhook the customer never sees. Stripe Apps and the Atlassian Marketplace are examples of installable surfaces. OpenAPI is how you describe a direct API so a partner engineer can get to a first call. None of those are the job. They are how the job ships.
The 60-second version
- Write the job in one sentence a customer, a seller, and an engineer can all repeat.
- Then pick the surface: marketplace plugin, direct API, or shared workflow.
- Auth is not the job. Sync, a trigger, or a shared status usually is.
- If you cannot demo the job without a slide, you are not ready to list.
How to write the job
Start from a customer day, not from a partnership thesis. What do they copy between systems. What do they wait on. What breaks when the two tools disagree. That pain is the job. If the only sentence you have is "better together," you do not have a job yet. See joint value proposition for the commercial version of the same sentence.
Authentication should follow current practice, not a custom invention. OAuth 2.0 and RFC 6749 are the usual path for delegated access. Get that right, then spend the design time on the job.
Further reading
Scoping that job is part of the Partner Audit. Shipping it is the Channel Build.
Continue on PartnerMatch