microsoft/api-guidelines

Analysis updated 2026-06-21

★ 23,265Audience · developerComplexity · 1/5Setup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      REST API style guide
      Design best practices
      Documentation only
    Topics covered
      URL naming
      Error handling
      Pagination
      Versioning
    Audience
      API designers
      Backend developers
    Benefits
      Consistent APIs
      Predictable behavior

mindmap root((repo)) What it does REST API style guide Design best practices Documentation only Topics covered URL naming Error handling Pagination Versioning Audience API designers Backend developers Benefits Consistent APIs Predictable behavior

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Design the URL structure, error responses, and pagination for a new REST API following Microsoft's proven standards

USE CASE 2

Review an existing API for consistency issues by checking it against these guidelines

USE CASE 3

Use as a learning resource to understand good API design principles from naming to versioning

USE CASE 4

Onboard a new developer to REST API design with a well-considered, opinionated reference

How does it compare?

	microsoft/api-guidelines	kholia/osx-kvm	facebookresearch/audiocraft
Stars	23,265	23,257	23,252
Language	—	Shell	Jupyter Notebook
Setup difficulty	easy	hard	hard
Complexity	1/5	4/5	4/5
Audience	developer	developer	researcher

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

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

Based on Microsoft's API guidelines, design the URL structure for a REST API that manages users and their orders

Prompt 2

What format should error responses use according to Microsoft's REST API guidelines, and what fields must they include?

Prompt 3

How should I version a REST API following Microsoft's guidelines, URL path, header, or query parameter?

Prompt 4

Design a paginated list endpoint for a products resource following Microsoft's REST API guidelines exactly

Prompt 5

How does Microsoft's API guideline say I should handle long-running operations that take more than a few seconds?

Frequently asked questions

What is api-guidelines?

Microsoft's official written guide for designing consistent REST APIs, covering URL naming, error formats, pagination, versioning, and other common decisions so any team's API feels familiar and predictable to developers.

How hard is api-guidelines to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is api-guidelines for?

Mainly developer.

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