Grammarly Production Checklist

Overview

Grammarly provides AI-powered writing assistance with grammar checking, tone detection, plagiarism scanning, and style suggestions. A production integration processes user-submitted text through Grammarly's API and returns actionable suggestions. Failures mean unchecked content goes live, suggestion latency degrades UX, or sensitive text leaks outside approved processing boundaries.

Authentication & Secrets

• GRAMMARLY_API_KEY stored in secrets manager (not config files)
• Client credentials (ID + secret) separated from application code
• Token refresh logic handles expiry before API calls fail
• Separate credentials for dev/staging/prod environments
• Key rotation schedule documented (90-day cycle)

API Integration

• Production base URL configured (https://api.grammarly.com/v1)
• Rate limit handling with exponential backoff
• Text chunking implemented for documents > 100K characters
• Minimum 30-word validation before sending to API
• Suggestion categories configured per use case (grammar, tone, clarity)
• AI detection endpoint integrated if content authenticity required
• Plagiarism check timeout handling (longer processing for large docs)

Error Handling & Resilience

• Circuit breaker configured for Grammarly API outages
• Retry with backoff for 429/5xx responses
• Writing score thresholds defined per content type
• Graceful degradation when API is unavailable (queue, not block)
• Error responses logged with request IDs for support escalation
• Partial suggestion results handled (incomplete analysis on timeout)

Monitoring & Alerting

• API latency tracked per request type (check, detect, plagiarism)
• Error rate alerts set (threshold: >5% over 5 minutes)
• Token refresh failures trigger immediate notification
• Suggestion acceptance rate tracked for quality feedback loop
• Daily API usage against plan limits monitored

Validation Script

async function checkGrammarlyReadiness(): Promise<void> {
  const checks: { name: string; pass: boolean; detail: string }[] = [];
  // API connectivity
  try {
    const res = await fetch('https://api.grammarly.com/v1/check', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.GRAMMARLY_API_KEY}`, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
      body: JSON.stringify({ text: 'This is a production readiness test sentence for validation.' }),
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'Grammarly API', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Connected' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'Grammarly API', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  // Credentials present
  checks.push({ name: 'API Key Set', pass: !!process.env.GRAMMARLY_API_KEY, detail: process.env.GRAMMARLY_API_KEY ? 'Present' : 'MISSING' });
  // Rate limit headroom
  try {
    const res = await fetch('https://api.grammarly.com/v1/usage', {
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.GRAMMARLY_API_KEY}` },
    });
    checks.push({ name: 'Usage Endpoint', pass: res.ok, detail: res.ok ? 'Accessible' : `HTTP ${res.status}` });
  } catch (e: any) { checks.push({ name: 'Usage Endpoint', pass: false, detail: e.message }); }
  for (const c of checks) console.log(`[${c.pass ? 'PASS' : 'FAIL'}] ${c.name}: ${c.detail}`);
}
checkGrammarlyReadiness();

Error Handling

Resources

• Grammarly Developer API
• Grammarly Status

Next Steps

See grammarly-security-basics for text data handling and privacy controls.