Best Practices for REST APIs

1. Accept and respond with JSON

   Use JSON for both request payloads and responses. JSON is widely supported, making it easy for clients (including browsers and server-side technologies) to work with data. It simplifies data transfer and manipulation.

2. Use Nouns Instead of Verbs in Endpoint Paths:

   • Design your API endpoints using nouns that represent resources.

     • Good: /users /products
     • Avoid: /getUsers /createProduct

   • This approach aligns with REST principles and makes your API more intuitive.
3. Nesting Resources for Hierarchical Objects:

   • If your data model involves hierarchical relationships, i.e(a user has multiple orders), consider nesting resources.

     • /users/{userId}/orders

   • This reflects the natural structure and simplifies navigation.
4. Errors Gracefully and Return Standard Error Codes:

   • Provide meaningful error messages to indicate when something goes wrong.

   • Use standard HTTP status codes to indicate the error type.

     • 200 OK: Successful GET or PUT requests
     • 201 Created: Successful POST requests
     • 204 No Content: Successful DELETE requests
     • 400 Bad Request: Invalid client request
     • 401 Unauthorized: Request requires authentication
     • 403 Forbidden: Client lacks permission
     • 404 Not Found: Requested resource not found
     • 500 Internal Server Error: Server-side error

   • Clear error responses help clients understand issues and troubleshoot effectively.
5. Clear error responses help clients understand issues and troubleshoot effectively.

   • Well-designed APIs cater to various client needs.

   • Enable clients to filter data based on criteria
     /products?category=electronics

   • Support sorting and pagination
     /products?sort=price
     /products?page=2&limit=10

Microservices Design Patterns

1. API Gateway :

   An API Gateway acts as a single -entry point for clients trying to access a system with multiple microservices. It routes requests to the appropriate microservice, handles security, and can aggregate data from various services before returning it to the client.

   

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2. Backend for Frontend (BFF) :

   Instead of a single API Gateway for all clients, a BFF creates a dedicated API tailored to the specific needs of each frontend application. This allows for optimized data formatting and functionality specific to each client.

3. Composite UI :

   This pattern breaks down a user interface into reusable components. These components can be independently developed, maintained, and potentially even used across different applications.

4. Saga:

   One of the biggest problems with microservices architecture is how to work around transactions that span multiple services. The saga pattern can help with this. Saga allows developers to manage eCommerce transactions across multiple microservices using a sequence of local transactions. Each of these is accompanied by an event that will trigger the next stage.

   

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5. Event-Driven Architecture and RESTful APIs:

   This architecture relies on events to trigger actions within the system. Microservices publish events when something happens, and other interested services can subscribe and react accordingly. RESTful APIs can be used to publish and subscribe to these events.

6. Blue-green deployment

   This pattern involves always running two identical production environments: blue and green. At any one time, only one of these environments is operational and handling all production traffic. A developer can upload a new version of the service to the inactive environment whenever they're ready to do so. In this manner, testing may be done by developers without affecting service. The new version of the software is introduced into the live environment once it is ready. The previous version stops working but keeps running. The service can revert to the previous version if the new one encounters any issues.

   
7. Distributed tracing In <>

   This architecture relies on events to trigger actions within the system. Microservices publish events when something happens, and other interested services can subscribe and react accordingly. RESTful APIs can be used to publish and subscribe to these events.

   

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conclusion