API Versioning Strategies That Work

Should you version APIs with /v1 in URLs, headers, or content negotiation? Compare strategies with pros, cons, and real-world examples.

Complete Guide to Securing API Endpoints

Secure your API endpoints with proper authentication, authorization, encryption, and input validation. Complete guide with implementation examples.

Pagination That Scales to Millions of Records

Offset-based pagination breaks at scale. Learn why cursor-based pagination is better and how to implement it in REST APIs with real examples.

How to Write API Docs Developers Actually Read

Technical accuracy isn't enough. Learn how to write API documentation that developers love with examples, code samples, and clear structure.

RFC 9457 Standard Error Format for APIs

Stop inventing custom error formats. RFC 9457 Problem Details provides a standard way to return HTTP API errors with machine-readable context.

Complete Guide to HTTP Status Codes

Learn when to use 200, 201, 204, 400, 404, 422, and 500 status codes in REST APIs. Complete guide with examples from Modern PetStore API.

REST API Best Practices 2026

Learn the essential REST API best practices for 2026, from HTTP/3 and OpenAPI 3.1 to JSON:API vs custom JSON, cursor pagination, idempotency keys, robust security, and performance optimizations that make your APIs fast, secure, and developer-friendly.

API Idempotency: Safe Retries

Idempotency makes your APIs safe to retry without creating duplicate orders or corrupting data. Learn which HTTP methods are idempotent by design and how to implement idempotency keys with Redis and database constraints using the PetStore API example.

Building Serverless APIs

Learn how to build Serverless APIs

Stop Using Action Verbs in REST API URLs

Action verbs like /findByStatus and /searchUsers violate REST principles. Learn why URLs should be nouns, not verbs, and how to design resource-oriented APIs.

Plural vs Singular Resource Naming in REST APIs

Should your REST API use /pet or /pets? This seemingly small decision affects consistency, readability, and developer experience. Learn why plural naming wins.

Why the Old Swagger Petstore Is Teaching You Bad API Design

The classic Swagger Petstore example violates basic RESTful principles. Learn what's wrong with it and how Modern PetStore API fixes these critical design flaws.

How to Connect AI Assistants to Your API with MCP

Learn how to connect AI assistants to your API using Model Context Protocol (MCP), by exposing Pet Store API operations as tools and resources so any MCP‑compatible model can securely call `get_pet`, list pets, and create orders with real‑time, permissioned access to your data.

What is REST API? A Complete Beginner's Guide

Learn what gRPC is, how Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2 make it dramatically faster than REST, and when to use unary and streaming RPCs for high-performance microservices, real-time data, and mobile clients with the Pet Store API instead of simple, public JSON CRUD endpoints.

What is gRPC and Why It's Faster Than REST

Learn what gRPC is, how Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2 make it dramatically faster than REST, and when to use unary and streaming RPCs for high-performance microservices, real-time data, and mobile clients with the Pet Store API instead of simple, public JSON CRUD endpoints.

WebSocket vs HTTP: What's the Difference and When to Use Each

Learn what Server‑Sent Events (SSE) are, when to choose them over polling or WebSockets, and how to stream real-time pet updates and AI responses from the Pet Store API using simple HTTP event streams that browsers consume with the built-in EventSource API.