RESTful API Design: Best Practices and Common Pitfalls
An API is a contract between systems, and like any contract, clarity matters more than cleverness. A well-designed RESTful API reduces integration time, lowers support overhead, and makes your platform more attractive to third-party developers. A poorly designed one creates confusion that compounds with every new consumer. Here are the practices that separate the two.
Use Nouns for Resources, Verbs for Actions
Endpoints should represent resources, not operations. Use /orders instead of /getOrders, and let HTTP methods convey intent: GET to read, POST to create, PUT or PATCH to update, DELETE to remove. This convention is widely understood and allows clients to predict behavior without reading documentation for every endpoint.