Guidelines for API Development
Building APIs can be challenging. It's always good to follow some basic standards when implementing your API to ensure that it follows industry standards and that it is easy to maintain, and use. I have compiled a list of good practices that will help you craft great APIs.
As a side note, these guidelines and standards are fairly beginner friendly, however if you are a seasoned API developer you may also benefit from revisiting some of the basics.
Use HTTP methods correctly:
- Use GET for reading data.
- Use POST for creating resources.
- Use PUT for updating resources.
- Use DELETE for deleting resources.
- Use other HTTP methods (PATCH, OPTIONS, HEAD) appropriately based on their intended use cases.
Use descriptive URIs:
URIs should be descriptive and should represent resources, not actions. For example, /users for accessing users’ resources, /products for accessing products’ resources.
Use nouns for resources:
Use plural nouns to represent resources. For example, /users, /products.
Versioning:
Include API versioning in the URI to allow for changes without breaking existing clients. For example, /api/v1/users.
Use HTTP status codes correctly:
Use appropriate HTTP status codes to indicate the result of the API operation (e.g., 200 OK, 201 Created, 400 Bad Request, 404 Not Found, 500 Internal Server Error).
Use JSON for data exchange:
Use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for data exchange between the client and server. It’s lightweight, easy to parse, and widely supported.
Use HTTP headers:
Utilize HTTP headers for conveying metadata and controlling caching, authentication, and content type.
Response format:
Standardize the format of API responses to make it easy for clients to parse. For example, using a consistent structure for success and error responses.
Use pagination for large datasets:
When returning large datasets, implement pagination to improve performance and reduce the load on both the client and server.
Implement proper authentication and authorization:
Use authentication mechanisms like OAuth, JWT (JSON Web Tokens), or API keys to authenticate clients.
Implement authorization mechanisms to control access to resources based on the authenticated user’s role and permissions.
Handle errors gracefully:
Provide informative error messages and use appropriate HTTP status codes to indicate error conditions.
Document your API:
Provide comprehensive documentation for your API, including details about endpoints, request/response formats, authentication mechanisms, and usage examples.
Documentation tools such as Swagger or Redocly can be greatly beneficial for your documentation efforts. They allow your users to understand what to expect from your API and can also greatly assist in implementation. You can also document your API in something like Postman by creating a public workspace.
Test your API:
Thoroughly test your API to ensure that it behaves as expected, handles errors gracefully, and performs well under different conditions.
Use tools such as Postman, Hopscotch or even your swagger documentation to test your API.
We can write a whole article just about API testing, but it is important to test positive and negative scenarios. Remember, your users will find a way to break things in strange ways, eliminate those cases by doing thorough and proper testing. Ensure that your API is capable of receiving and handeling both good, and bad requests.
Building APIs at speed
If you need to build an API at speed with limited resources, why not try a Low-Code tool? Tools like Linx allow you to build your API at speed. For example, you can either craft your own API Specification, import that into Linx and then build the logic. OR you can create your API by using a wizard, add the logic through a drag-and-drop interface, test it and deploy with one click. This kind of tools insignificantly increase productivity and delivery of APIs, meaning that your project can go live quickly with minimal effort.
I have a few articles on how you can easily do this with minimal coding required:
