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

Check	Risk if Skipped	Priority
Token refresh logic	Silent auth failure blocks all checks	P1
Text chunking	Large documents rejected or truncated	P1
Rate limit handling	Burst traffic triggers 429 cascade	P2
Plagiarism timeout	Stuck requests block content pipeline	P2
Usage monitoring	Surprise plan overage charges	P3

Resources

• Grammarly Developer API
• Grammarly Status

Next Steps

See

grammarly-security-basics

for text data handling and privacy controls.