You're reading from RESTful API Design Patterns and Best Practices Master REST API design with real-world patterns, lifecycle management, and OpenAPI practices

Product type Paperback

Published in Oct 2025

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781835885284

Length 406 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

JavaScript

Tools

.NET

Concepts

REST API

Authors (2):

Andrzej Jarzyna

Samir Amzani

View More author details

Table of Contents (20) Chapters

Preface

1. The Apprentice’s Study – Preparing for the Craft

2. The “Why” of API Development FREE CHAPTER

3. API as a Product: Designing APIs with a Product Mindset

4. Understanding Application and API Lifecycles

5. Applying Domain-Driven Design to APIs

6. The Wizard’s Grimoire – Mastering the Fundamentals of REST

7. Comparing and Choosing the Right API Style

8. REST Design Constraints and Maturity Models

9. Constructing an API Design Domain Model

10. Designing and Managing Effective API Contracts

11. The Archmage’s Circle – Forging and Evolving API Contracts

12. Understanding the OpenAPI Specification

13. OpenAPI as a Contract: Best Practices and Implementation

14. Using JSON Schema to Define Your Object Models

15. Don’t Hate Your Hypermedia: Creating APIs for Humans and AIs

16. API Change Management: Strategies for Versioning and Evolution

17. Unlock Your Book’s Exclusive Benefits

How to unlock these benefits in three easy steps

18. Other Books You May Enjoy

19. Index

What’s an API style?

An API style is a set of architectural principles and conventions that guide the design and implementation of an API. It defines how the API is structured, how clients interact with it, how data is communicated, and the protocols or standards used for communication. An API style encompasses the overall approach to exposing functionality and data to clients, including the following aspects:

Interaction patterns: Whether the communication is synchronous or asynchronous, request-response, or event-driven
Data modeling: How resources or services are represented and manipulated, such as through resources, functions, or queries
Communication protocols: The underlying protocols used, such as HTTP for RESTful APIs or binary protocols for gRPC
Data formats: The formats in which data is serialized and transmitted, such as JSON, XML, or Protocol Buffers
State management: How the API handles state, whether it’s stateless, such...