The API industry is constantly shifting to fit the latest technological needs and industry standards. Every new evolution of the internet and digital tools creates new opportunities and presents new challenges for the API industry. These changes have been swift and intense in recent years, with the tech industry scrambling to keep up with unprecedented societal shifts.

With so much change happening so quickly, it’s always a good idea to periodically check in on basic API best practices. To help you keep track of some of the emerging trends, while also serving as a general refresher, here are some of the leading API best practices to ensure your APIs are at peak performance.

Naming Conventions

Generally speaking, it’s best practice to name your endpoints using a noun. Best practices recommend using the plural form rather than the singular. If you need to reference a singular endpoint, do so within the endpoint.

To illustrate this API naming best practice, if you wanted to create an endpoint for all of the animals in a Pet Store API, you should use \pets as the endpoint. If you wanted to query about a particular animal, best practices dictate you use \pets\{animal_id}.

Resources Versus Collections

Collections and resources are pivotal for RESTful APIs. A resource is an object important enough to be referenced, often as an endpoint. Resources tend to contain data, have relationships with other resources, and methods for accessing or manipulating the data.

A collection is a group of resources, on the other hand. Although resources are the building blocks of APIs, the best practice of using the plural form means that collections often serve as the root endpoint. For example, all invoices might be collected at an endpoint called \Invoices. If you want to create a resource for an individual invoice, using a format like \Invoices\{invoice identifier} is best practice.

Embrace Abstraction Layers

It’s considered best practice for APIs to prevent users from accessing or manipulating data directly without a layer in between. Direct access increases the likelihood of unauthorized access, data breaches, or various security risks related to broken object-level authorization (BOLA).

Abstraction layers such as API gateways and authorization workflows help rate limit and secure APIs. They also have the added benefit of making APIs more machine-readable and enabling a design-first architecture. They even help to make an API more flexible and decentralized, as the abstraction layer can be invoked from other locations.

Use Different API Formats For Different Needs

Historically, REST (or RESTful) over HTTP has been the default design format for APIs, and most APIs still use it. However, this has been changing as more API languages, design patterns, and architectures have emerged.

For example, GraphQL has become increasingly popular for constructing APIs due to its customizability. With GraphQL, clients can specify what data they need rather than having the server deliver the entire load every time. Not only does this make requests faster for the user, but it also puts less strain on the server and reduces costs.

It’s beneficial to understand what API design formats are out there to know which one will best serve your needs. In addition to the two mentioned above, alternative formats like WebSockets, Webhooks, gRPC, and asynchronous protocols are also commonly used for various modern use cases.

Use HTTP Methods Appropriately

Best practice dictates using the different kinds of HTTP methods correctly. GET is the most popular HTTP method, used when data only needs to be transmitted. POST allows users to create new entries in a resource. PUT allows a user to alter every item in a resource. DELETE removes an object from a resource. PATCH allows users to change part of a resource.

Generally speaking, it’s a best practice for APIs in 2025 to use caution when setting a resource to POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE since these actions can modify system state, unlike GET, which is read-only. Some developers even advocate for using as few HTTP methods as possible. Historically, the X/Twitter API predominantly only used GET and POST methods.

Some developers use POST for everything, which is theoretically possible but is a poor design choice since it breaks REST principles and can reduce clarity for API users. It goes against the design principle that APIs should strive for idempotency. POST is not the most efficient way to configure an API, either, as POST responses are generally not cacheable.

No single HTTP method is the correct solution for every potential problem. Therefore, understanding all of the HTTP methods, including emerging options like QUERY, and choosing accordingly is truly the best practice.

Avoid Breaking Changes and Use Versioning

APIs change and evolve. When your API has changed enough to deserve a new version, it’s best practice to keep the existing model as a version. This allows existing developers to continue using your API without service outages. Many recommend using semantic versioning, maintaining the existing version at a /v1 or /v2 endpoint. This method allows you to let developers know what’s been changed.

Practice Consistency

Consistency is imperative if you want your API to be well-understood. For resources, it’s best practice to use the same names across your enterprise, following the advice to name endpoints using plural nouns. You should also use consistent HTTP status codes and error messages across all your API products, with the errors delivering enough human-readable information to be useful for debugging.

Use Proper Authentication

Proper authorization and authentication are central to API security protocols. As of 2025, the current best practice is using OAuth 2.0 or JSON Web Tokens (JWTs). (Although, the in-progress OAuth 2.1 may soon emerge as a best practice). JWTs are a popular component of identity management as each user is granted a token, which is then used to make API requests. This also helps prevent data breaches, as all payloads contain user info as part of their data.

It’s important that your authentication is robust enough to protect your API, as well. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and biometric information are both popular security protocols for ensuring API security. Both solutions help attach API security to identity, making them ideal for CIAM solutions.

Use an API Gateway

API gateways offer a single point of contact for all API requests, providing a layer of protection between users and API creators. API gateways also make APIs more secure as they centralize authentication and authorization and validate API requests. Most API gateways provide rate limiting, helping avoid denial of service attacks, and offer API monitoring and logging.

Authorize with Least Privilege

The principle of least privileges dictates that users and systems should only be granted the minimum permissions required to perform the task they’re trying to perform. Keeping API access to a minimum reduces the risks of data breaches, unauthorized actions, and malicious behavior on your platform.

As part of this, fine-grained access control allows API developers to create specific access rules based on user roles, attributes, or groups. These practices are commonly known as attribute-based access control (ABAC) and role-based access control (RBAC). Such design patterns can guarantee that only particular users can access specific endpoints or resources, which serves as good protection against privilege escalation attacks.

Use Encryption

The current best practice for data security recommends encrypting all communication between the client and your API using industry-standard protocols like HTTPS or TLS. Some recommend also using HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to better enforce HTTPS. It’s also recommended to secure static data, such as any stored in databases or other storage systems, in case the system is compromised in some way.

Plan For the Entire API Lifecycle

API lifecycle management, sometimes called full lifecycle AI management, has become increasingly popular as APIs become more mainstream. Adopting API lifecycle management makes designing and developing APIs more focused, efficient, and secure.

The Stages of the API Lifecycle:

• Design
• Develop
• Testing
• Deployment
• Monitoring
• Versioning and Updates
• Deprecation

Understanding each stage of the API lifecycle before writing a single line of code will help you move seamlessly between the stages without experiencing broken clients or service outages. It also helps make your API more secure, as it helps prevent API sprawl and the creation of zombie APIs, both of which could compromise your API security by falling outside of your security system. It also makes the versioning process nearly effortless, allowing you to move the older version to a dedicated endpoint when it’s time to be deprecated.

When it’s time for an API to be deprecated, starting the process as early as possible is best practice. Start sending messages to your existing users as much as six months ahead of time if you have that much forewarning. This will help prevent outages when your API is fully deprecated. Send additional reminders letting your existing users how much time remains until the deprecation is complete. An example of an API deprecation message schedule might be six months, three months, one month, and one week. When the new API is unveiled, move the existing API to a versioning endpoint.

Understand AI and APIs

AI continues to make waves in the worlds of business, tech, and finance. AI has several different implications for API developers. APIs are commonly used to perform functions inside of AI tools like LLMs, for example. This is also a good example of why it’s a good idea to understand AI when working with APIs, as some LLMs allow code to be executed inside a network.

Understanding the security implications of the tools you’re working with is important. On the development side, AI tools can be used to create the APIs themselves. Tools like Hacking APIs GPT can create a working API from nothing more than an API specification. Such automation is exciting from an API-first design approach and promises to open the API industry to users without a technical background.

Final Thoughts on API Best Practices

The API industry is constantly shifting faster than it’s possible to keep up. Consider it a best practice for API practices to do a major refresh towards the beginning of the year, when you’re setting your business goals and creating your schedule for the year. Then, you can spot-check your learning over the next 12 months. This way, your APIs will remain safe, secure, efficient, and, if it’s in your goals for this year, profitable.