diff --git a/docs/decisions.md b/docs/decisions.md
index eafdf2e..6c57e4a 100644
--- a/docs/decisions.md
+++ b/docs/decisions.md
@@ -178,3 +178,10 @@ says so.
     preference. The limiter is keyed by email rather than IP (a proxy would mean trusting
     `X-Forwarded-For`) and locks the *attempt rate*, not the account, so nobody can lock someone
     else out by trying.
+43. **The JSON API is deferred entirely, not built on demand.** Decision 17 kept the contract fixed
+    and expected handlers to appear one at a time; in practice nothing consumes `/api` at all, so
+    even that trickle would be handlers with no callers, plus golden tests guarding shapes nothing
+    reads. The contract in [spec.md](./spec.md) stays as the design — it is what stops the shape
+    changing under a future client — and the first endpoint gets built the day something actually
+    calls it. Both surfaces being thin adapters over one data function is already true of the page
+    handlers, so adding the JSON side later stays a one-line-per-route job.
diff --git a/docs/later.md b/docs/later.md
index 47c7b72..d0e255f 100644
--- a/docs/later.md
+++ b/docs/later.md
@@ -151,6 +151,23 @@ Notes for whoever builds it:
 
 ---
 
+## The JSON API
+
+Designed and specified in [spec.md §8](./spec.md) — object shapes, endpoints, error codes,
+pagination — and deliberately not implemented, because nothing calls it (decision 43).
+
+When something does:
+
+- Build only the endpoints that consumer needs, as `jsonOf(...)` adapters over the same data
+  functions the pages already use, so the domain rules cannot diverge between the surfaces.
+- Add the golden-file tests at the same time, one per object shape. They are what makes a renamed
+  field a test failure rather than a silent break in a client you cannot update.
+- CORS is a one-line middleware, added the day the consumer is on a different origin. Not before.
+- The most likely first consumer is a native client (see above), and the endpoints it needs are
+  login, the queue, a song with its reviews, and posting a review — four routes, not twenty-one.
+
+---
+
 ## Filters on the browse list
 
 `/songs` is newest-first with no filters. Once there are a couple of hundred songs, "which ones
diff --git a/docs/spec.md b/docs/spec.md
index f5dee5f..027bbc4 100644
--- a/docs/spec.md
+++ b/docs/spec.md
@@ -509,8 +509,10 @@ file.
 
 ## 8. API contract
 
-Fixed before implementation, because the shape is the expensive thing to change once a client is
-installed somewhere you cannot update.
+**Not built.** Nothing consumes `/api` — the browser talks HTML to the page surface — so this
+section is a design, not a description of running code (decision 43). It stays here because the
+shape is the expensive thing to change once a client is installed somewhere you cannot update, and
+the first endpoint is one line over a data function that already exists.
 
 **Conventions**
 
@@ -727,4 +729,4 @@ panel, so the admin surface comes first — before a single member can exist.
    this step.**
 5. **YouTube path** — yt-dlp metadata and download, slotted into a pipeline that already works.
 6. **Stats, profiles, avatars, palaute.**
-7. **API endpoints and golden tests**, once something wants them.
+7. **API endpoints and golden tests** — deferred until something wants them (decision 43).