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REST API Design: Resources, Status Codes and Error Handling
A complete guide to designing intuitive, consistent, and production-grade REST APIs — covering resource modeling, HTTP verb semantics, status code taxonomy, and standardized RFC 7807 error responses.
HTTP method semantics are defined by RFC specifications: GET, HEAD, and OPTIONS must be safe (read-only); PUT and DELETE must be idempotent; POST is neither safe nor idempotent.
Never return `200 OK` with an `{ error: true }` body. Use standard HTTP status codes so API gateways, CDNs, client SDKs, and monitoring tools can accurately classify errors.
- Model clean resource hierarchies using nouns and pluralized endpoints
- Differentiate safe, idempotent, and non-idempotent HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE)
- Select accurate HTTP status codes across the 2xx, 4xx, and 5xx families
- Implement RFC 7807 (Problem Details for HTTP APIs) for consistent client error handling
1. Resource-Oriented URL Modeling
Free Chapter PreviewREST APIs should model resources (nouns), not remote procedure calls (verbs):
// BAD (RPC disguised as REST):
POST /getUserDetails
POST /createNewOrder
POST /deleteUser?id=42
// GOOD (Resource-Oriented REST):
GET /api/v1/users/42
POST /api/v1/orders
DELETE /api/v1/users/42Hierarchical Sub-Resources
Use nested paths to represent relationships where the child cannot exist without the parent:
GET /api/v1/users/42/orders: Orders belonging to user 42.POST /api/v1/users/42/orders: Create an order for user 42.
/users/42/orders/10/items/3/taxes). Use top-level endpoints with query filters instead: GET /api/v1/order-items?order_id=10.2. HTTP Verbs: Safe vs Idempotent Semantics
In this section, we examine the production failure mechanics, internal socket buffers, and kernel-level trace diagnostics...
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