RESTful Endpoints

A RESTful url should represent a thing, not an action. We want to avoid putting any verbs in the name of the url - instead, the action should be defined by the HTTP method. For example:

// Bad
GET http://example.com/get-users
GET http://example.com/update-user?name=bob

// Good
GET http://example.com/users
PUT http://example.com/users/u/bob

Of course, a "resource" can just as easily be a more abstract concept, like a component of a web page:

GET http://example.com/modals/users/create

This might seem to contradict what we just said, which is not to use verbs in our urls. However in this case, "create" isn't referring to the client's action, but to the resource itself. We're getting the "create user" modal, so modals/users/create is the resource name, and our action is GET.

Naming Scheme

UserFrosting uses a specific naming scheme for endpoints, which we would encourage you to stick with when you start to develop your own endpoints.

Load an admin page that contains a list of users

GET /admin/users

Load an admin page that contains a single user

GET /admin/users/u/bob

Get a list of users and their information, as a JSON object

GET /api/users

Get a single user's information as a JSON object

GET /api/users/u/bob

Create a new user

POST /api/users

Update an existing user

PUT /api/users/u/bob

Update specific field for an existing user

PUT /api/users/u/bob/email

Delete an existing user

DELETE /api/users/u/bob

Delete all users

DELETE /api/users

Get an "edit user" modal HTML fragment

GET /modals/users/edit

Notice that some requests use the exact same url, and only differ in the HTTP method used. For example, /api/users/u/bob can be used to retrieve, update, or delete Bob's account depending on which HTTP verb we are using.