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microsoft/api-guidelines

★ 23,271Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5QuietLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

Microsoft's published design guidelines for building consistent, predictable REST APIs. A reference document for naming, errors, pagination, versioning, and other API design decisions.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Design guidelines
      Best practices
      Reference docs
    Key topics
      URL naming
      Error handling
      Pagination
      API versioning
    Use cases
      Design new APIs
      Review existing APIs
      Learn API patterns
    Audience
      API developers
      Tech leads
      Architects

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Design a new REST API by following Microsoft's naming, error handling, and versioning conventions.

USE CASE 2

Review an existing API for consistency issues against established best practices.

USE CASE 3

Learn REST API design principles and patterns from a well-researched, industry-standard reference.

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice and license text.

In plain English

Microsoft REST API Guidelines is a published set of design rules and best practices for building web APIs, specifically the kind called REST APIs, where external programs communicate with a service over standard web requests. Think of it as an official style guide telling developers how their APIs should behave so they feel consistent and predictable to anyone who uses them. The guidelines cover things like how to name your URL paths, how to handle errors, how to do pagination when returning large lists of results, how to version your API over time, and many other common design decisions. The goal is that any Microsoft REST API, or any team that adopts these guidelines, will feel familiar to a developer who has used another API that follows the same rules. There is no code to run here. It is a documentation repository: a collection of written guidelines and reference documents. You would consult it when designing a new web API and wanting a well-considered blueprint to follow, or when reviewing an existing API for consistency problems. It is also useful as a learning resource for understanding good API design principles in general.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I'm designing a REST API for a new service. Walk me through the Microsoft REST API Guidelines for naming conventions, HTTP status codes, and error responses.
Prompt 2
How should I structure pagination in my REST API according to the Microsoft guidelines? Show me examples.
Prompt 3
What does the Microsoft REST API Guidelines say about API versioning strategies and when to use each approach?
Prompt 4
I have an existing API that doesn't follow REST conventions. Use the Microsoft guidelines to suggest what I should change for consistency.
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