Networking & HTTP·Networking from DNS to production

REST and status codes

Design predictable resources and use status codes that clients can act on.

Beginner 13 min read Lesson 8 of 300 Challenge included

What you will be able to do

Name resources with nouns, not verbs.
Use plural collection paths.
Return 201 plus a Location header on create.
Use 422 for validation errors and include field details.

In plain English

REST models resources as URLs and uses HTTP methods for actions. Return 200 for reads, 201 for creation, 204 for no content, 400 for malformed input, 401 for unauthenticated, 403 for forbidden, 404 for missing and 422 for validation failures.

api.httpHTTP

POST /api/courses HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json

{"title":"CSS Grid"}

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Location: /api/courses/css-grid
Content-Type: application/json

Your turn

Return 201 on create

Easy

Which status code should a successful resource creation return?

HTTP · starter

status =

Check your understanding before moving on.

Knowledge checkQuestion 1

Which status code means the request was understood but validation failed?

Select an answer to continue

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Lesson 8 of 300 · 0% of course