api-architecture

RESTful API design uses a standardized request pipeline: Rate Limit → Auth → Validate → Authorize → Execute. This enforces security and consistency across all endpoints, ensuring requests are throttled, authenticated, validated for structure, checked for permissions, and finally executed in order.

Cursor-based pagination is more efficient than offset-based for large datasets. It uses a cursor token to mark the position in results, reducing database load and ensuring consistent ordering even as data changes, making it ideal for scalable REST APIs.

Yes. Next.js App Router supports serverless route handlers that implement RESTful patterns with resource-centric routes, typed error handling, and standardized response structures, enabling scalable API architectures without managing infrastructure.

Enforce a security pipeline: rate limiting prevents abuse, authentication verifies identity, validation checks request format, authorization confirms permissions, and then execute the operation. Standardized error payloads and typed handling ensure consistent security across endpoints.

Anti-patterns include mixing HTTP methods (using GET for mutations), inconsistent response structures, missing pagination for large datasets, and bypassing security validation. Following resource-centric routes and the enforced pipeline prevents these issues.

Use standardized error payloads with consistent structure across all endpoints, paired with typed error handling. This lets clients parse errors reliably and improves debugging, as all failures follow the same format and categories.