A communication method and an apparatus are provided. The method includes: A common application programming interface framework core function (CCF) network element first sends reference information of an application to a first network element. Therefore, the first network element determines network slice information corresponding to the application; and then the first network element sends the determined network slice information to the CCF network element. In this way, the CCF network element may determine the network slice information corresponding to the application, so that when an API invoker network element searches for an API, the CCF network element can accurately find, based on an API inquiry parameter, the API from a network slice corresponding to the network slice information.