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RESTful JSON is a minimal and pragmatic design pattern for using links to build expressive and evolvable APIs.

Overview

For JSON formats conforming to RFC 7159, apply the following guidelines:

  1. JSON objects MAY include a url property to indicate a link to itself
  2. JSON objects MAY append _url to properties to indicate related links

All URLs SHOULD conform to RFC 3986. API providers MAY use camel case rather than snake case where applicable. A profile link conforming to RFC 6906, as indicated with either a property name of profile_url or profileUrl, MAY be used to link to additional documentation about the resource.

The media type application/vnd.restful+json has been registered for this design pattern.

Example

The JSON below shows a representation for an article.

{
    "url": "/articles/17",
    "title": "Article Title",
    "body": "The body of the article.",
    "author_url": "/authors/42",
    "categories": [
        {
            "url": "/categories/29",
            "name": "Category A"
        },
        {
            "url": "/categories/33",
            "name": "Category B"
        }
    ],
    "profile_url": "http://example.com/profile/article"
}

This example demonstrates using url in an article resource object and included categories, associating a related author resource with an author_url link, and referencing documentation with a profile_url link.

Usage and Guidelines

API Providers (Server-Side)

At design time, all links that comply with the recommendations above SHOULD be documented indicating what each link means including any and all associated methods, query parameters, RFC 6570 URI templates and body properties.

API providers SHOULD consider adding the note below to their documentation to describe how links are used.

This API uses RESTful JSON by including links in the responses to guide client interactions. Objects in this API MAY include a url property for a link to itself and MAY append _url to properties for related links.

API providers SHOULD reference the documentation in a response.

At runtime, only links a client is allowed to interact with SHOULD be present in API responses. If multiple methods are associated with a particular link, they MUST all be allowed if the link is present.

API Consumers (Client-Side)

At build time, the client SHOULD NOT infer any meaning from nor hard-code any expectation of a link's URL structure. A client MAY introspect link URLs to populate documented query parameters or URI templates.

At runtime, the client SHOULD use links in API responses for interacting with resources. The client SHOULD rely on the presence or absence of links to know what it may or may not do at runtime. The client SHOULD ignore any resource links or properties it was not designed to use, allowing the server and client to evolve independently over time.

Influences

This document is influenced by APIs and tools that have pragmatically added links to their APIs in a similar way: GitHub API, Stripe API, Medium API, Basecamp API, Trello API and Django REST Framework.

About

This document was authored by Stephen Mizell and Mark W. Foster in an effort to lower the barrier to entry for implementing and consuming hypermedia APIs. This document is licensed under the MIT license. The requirements here conform to RFC 2119.

RESTful JSON can be found on GitHub.