RESTful API Design Questions

Focuses on designing resource oriented web APIs following Representational State Transfer principles and proper use of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Core skills include resource modeling and endpoint naming, use of correct Hypertext Transfer Protocol methods and semantics, status code selection and error response structure, idempotency and stateless design, request and response formats such as JavaScript Object Notation, pagination, filtering and sorting strategies, versioning and backward compatibility, authentication and authorization patterns, rate limiting and abuse prevention, caching and performance considerations, API contract testing and documentation, common anti patterns, and designing APIs that balance client usability with backend implementation concerns.

EasyTechnical

61 practiced

Define idempotency in the context of HTTP APIs and explain why it matters for client retries and reliability. Describe how PUT and DELETE are idempotent while POST is not by default, and outline a simple technique to make a POST create operation idempotent (including storage and expiry considerations).

EasyTechnical

69 practiced

Compare offset-based and cursor-based pagination for list endpoints. Explain performance, correctness with changing datasets, and complexity trade-offs. Provide example request/response parameter naming and sample response metadata for both approaches.

HardTechnical

58 practiced

Design a strategy for caching personalized resources using conditional GETs (ETag/If-None-Match) and Cache-Control. Explain how to generate ETags efficiently for resources that are composed of data from multiple backend services and how to balance freshness versus cache hit rate.

EasyTechnical

72 practiced

Compare API key authentication, OAuth2 (authorization code and client credentials), and JWT-based schemes for REST APIs. For each describe typical use-cases, strengths, weaknesses, and primary security considerations (token expiry, refresh, revocation).

HardSystem Design

84 practiced

Detail a rollout plan to migrate from API v1 to v2 with zero downtime. Include strategies for database migrations (expand-contract), side-by-side API implementations, feature flags, client detection and blue-green/canary deploys, schema adapters, testing, and rollback procedures.

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