[pfarrell]

There are no new problems, only new engineers.

I have been puzzling over this API discovery issue on my current project (building out a reporting API).

I'm starting with self documentation for developers built in, not this (admittedly admirable) goal of a machine generated API mapping layer. I think the main issue is, you're trying to generate a generic interface to something that isn't, itself, generic.

How many versions of "RESTful" have you encountered?

Building a generic interface to non-generic interfaces is the domain of software engineers. Until we have machines building both sides of this equation, there will always be a need for human intervention.