Designing Useful APIs: Best Practices for Naming, Idempotency, Pagination, Filtering, Versioning & Security
Best Practices in API Design (A Practical Guide) APIs are the connective tissue of modern software. A useful API is predictable, consistent, and safe to evolve. Below is a concise, hands-on guide—mirroring the structure in the image—covering eight fundamentals with patterns, anti-patterns, and snippets you can drop into your docs. 1) Use Clear Naming Principles Nouns, not verbs for resources: /products , /orders/123 , /users/42 . Plural collections ; singular items: /products (list/create), /products/{id} (read/update/delete). Use subresources for relationships/actions : Relationship: /orders/123/items Domain actions (state changes) as subpaths: /orders/123/cancel , /users/42/verify Consistent casing (kebab-case or snake_case) and predictable errors. Do POST /api/v1/products GET /api/v1/products?category=shoes PATCH /api/v1/products/123 DELETE /api/v1/products/123 Don’t /createNewProduct /getProduc...