REST

Overview

REST is an architectural style for distributed systems that organizes interactions around resources, representations, uniform interfaces, and stateless communication. REST is an architectural style centered on resources, representations, and standardized interface semantics; it is not a synonym for every HTTP-based API. HTTP is commonly used, but REST is broader than simply sending JSON over HTTP. Designers should identify stable resources, use standard methods and status codes consistently, provide links or discoverability where useful, and make requests self-contained.

Data modeling for REST should use stable identifiers, explicit timestamps and timezones, documented decimal and currency rules, nullable-field semantics, enumerated statuses, and immutable historical references. Authentication, authorization, retries, observability, and business workflows still need explicit design beyond the architectural style. REST does not automatically provide security, reliability, versioning, idempotency, or a complete domain model. An API can use HTTP methods yet violate important REST constraints through action-heavy routes, hidden session dependence, or inconsistent semantics. A successful transport result from REST should not be interpreted beyond the exact API state documented by the provider.

An audit trail for REST should link the contract and client version, principal, request identifier, sanitized payload evidence, response, callbacks, retries, overrides, provider references, and final state. For REST, metrics should separate transport success from business success. Representational State Transfer describes constraints such as client-server separation, stateless requests, cacheability, layered systems, and a uniform interface. The REST owner should publish stable error semantics and guidance on whether correction, retry, status lookup, or escalation is appropriate.

Changes to REST should be checked against older clients, stored payloads, enum growth, default behavior, and retry assumptions.