Many - possibly most - APIs that we work with make one or two utility endpoints available for checking connection, authentication, server time, etc.

For example "ServerTime" and "ConnectionStatus" (or even, simply, "Connected"). The first call simply returns a server time-stamp which can act as both a time reference and a connection check. Better is the second which can return full connection details such as authentication status, latency, etc but can be as simple as true/false. (This is actually better named "Authenticated" or "Authorized" as if the connection itself isn't made, there won't be any response.)

The reason we have a need for at least one of these is to handle the case where authorization details become corrupted or are lost and re-authorization is needed. Without this, actual production calls failing are the only indication that something is wrong. It's better if an innocuous connection test can be made external to production processes.