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Comment by programmarchy

3 days ago

For most APIs that doesn’t deliver any value which can’t be gained from API docs, so it’s hard to justify. However, these days it could be very useful if you want an AI to be able to navigate your API. But MCP has the spotlight now.

5 comments

programmarchy

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naasking  3 days ago

And that's fine, but then you're doing RPC instead of REST and we should all be clear and honest about that.

  • Spivak  3 days ago

    I think you throw away a useful description of an API by lumping them all under RPC. If you tell me your API is RPC instead of REST then I'll assume that:

    * If the API is available over HTTP then the only verb used is POST.

    * The API is exposed on a single URL and the `method` is encoded in the body of the request.

    • osigurdson  3 days ago

      It is true, if you say "RPC" I'm more likely to assume gRPC or something like that. If you say "REST", I'm 95% confident that it is a standard / familiar OpenAPI style json-over-http style API but will reserve a 5% probability that it is actually HATEOAS and have to deal with that. I'd say, if you are doing Roy Fielding certified REST / HATEOAS it is non-standard and you should call it out specifically by using the term "HATEOAS" to describe it.