REST API Design Best Practices

A well-designed API is intuitive to use, consistent in behavior, and graceful in failure. Here are the principles.

URL Structure

Use nouns, not verbs: /users not /getUsers
Plural resources: /users not /user
Nested for relationships: /users/123/orders
Use hyphens, not underscores: /order-items

HTTP Methods

Method	Use	Idempotent?
GET	Read data	Yes
POST	Create new	No
PUT	Replace	Yes
PATCH	Partial update	Yes
DELETE	Remove	Yes

Error Responses

Always return structured errors with a human-readable message and machine-readable code. Include a request ID for debugging. Our JSON Formatter helps you design clean response structures.