REST API Design

Expert guidance for designing clean, consistent, production-grade REST APIs in Phoenix.

Core Principles

• Resources are nouns — /users, /orders, not /createUser, /getOrders
• HTTP methods are verbs — GET reads, POST creates, PUT/PATCH updates, DELETE removes
• Consistent everywhere — same patterns for naming, errors, pagination, auth across all endpoints
• Stateless — each request contains all information needed; no server-side session state
• Predictable — a developer who's seen one endpoint can guess how the rest work

Resource Design

URL Structure