api-design-patterns

REST API versioning strategies let you evolve endpoints without breaking existing clients. This Skill covers versioning approaches like URL paths (/v1/, /v2/) and headers, paired with pagination and consistent error handling to maintain backward compatibility while adding new features.

Standardized error schemas ensure clients handle failures predictably. This Skill defines consistent error formats, appropriate HTTP status codes, and response structures that work across REST and GraphQL APIs, reducing client-side debugging friction.

Cursor-based and offset pagination strategies control data volume per request. This Skill provides pagination patterns that scale with large result sets, prevent client timeouts, and maintain performance in resource-oriented REST endpoints.

Resource-oriented design maps business objects to clear REST endpoints with meaningful HTTP methods, creating intuitive, predictable APIs. This Skill establishes patterns for consistent naming, correct method semantics, and HATEOAS links that scale across microservices.

Yes. This Skill's API design patterns support OpenAPI and GraphQL schema generation, letting you define versioning, error handling, and resource structures once and export documentation and client code automatically.

Both have distinct trade-offs in query flexibility, caching, and versioning complexity. This Skill covers design patterns for both GraphQL and REST, helping you apply consistent principles like error handling and pagination regardless of protocol choice.