diff --git a/API.md b/API.md
index 867ce5cac..4861d236a 100644
--- a/API.md
+++ b/API.md
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+The [Xous Book](https://betrusted.io/xous-book/ch07-02-caller-idioms.html) reviews the system architecture and breaks down the various API idioms chapter-by-chapter.
+
+This document conveys much of the similar information, but in a more monolithic form. This document also does not cover [deferred response](https://betrusted.io/xous-book/ch07-06-deferred.html) idioms.
 
 ## Xous Messaging API In Practice
 
diff --git a/RELEASE-v0.9.md b/RELEASE-v0.9.md
index 60c87e97e..d2496e6fe 100644
--- a/RELEASE-v0.9.md
+++ b/RELEASE-v0.9.md
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ for examples of idiomatic ways to write code for Xous.
 - Sleep screen is now blanked of all prior content and just the sentinel message is held
 - Sleep/suspend lightly refactored to fix some bugs. Ticktimer is now the sole `Last` event.
 - Preliminary text to speech (TTS) support added; compile with `cargo xtask tts` or set the LOCALE to `en-tts` to try it out.
+- Introduce deferred-response pattern into modals, pddb, and susres.
 
 ## Roadmap to 1.0
 
diff --git a/services/skeleton/src/lib.rs b/services/skeleton/src/lib.rs
index 49f1532ce..ca6fb94e2 100644
--- a/services/skeleton/src/lib.rs
+++ b/services/skeleton/src/lib.rs
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 #![cfg_attr(target_os = "none", no_std)]
 
 pub mod api;
+pub use api::*;
 use xous::{CID, send_message};
 use num_traits::ToPrimitive;
 
@@ -8,12 +9,13 @@ pub struct Codec {
     conn: CID,
 }
 impl Codec {
-    pub fn new(xns: &xous_names::XousNames) -> Result<Self, xous::Error> {
+    pub fn new() -> Self {
+        let xns = xous_names::XousNames::new().expect("couldn't connect to XousNames");
         REFCOUNT.fetch_add(1, Ordering::Relaxed);
         let conn = xns.request_connection_blocking(api::SERVER_NAME_CODEC).expect("Can't connect to Codec server");
-        Ok(Codec {
+        Codec {
             conn
-        })
+        }
     }
 }