12-24-2025, 07:55 AM
I'm designing a new REST API for our internal inventory management system, and I'm trying to establish clear conventions for versioning, error handling, and pagination that will be sustainable as the service evolves. I've reviewed common best practices, but I'm unsure about some implementation specifics, like whether to use URL path or header-based versioning and how to structure detailed error responses. For API developers, what patterns have you found most effective for maintaining backward compatibility while introducing new features? How do you handle complex filtering and sorting requests in a clean, predictable way, and what tools or frameworks do you recommend for comprehensive API documentation and testing?