# RestCheatSheet/api-cheat-sheet

API Design Guidelines and Best Practices Cheat Sheet

Repository: https://github.com/RestCheatSheet/api-cheat-sheet
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/api-cheat-sheet
License Family: other
Last push: 2024-06-03T06:45:24+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4082, "days_push": 821, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1161, forks 193 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:49.271256+00:00)

## What it is
A community-maintained cheat sheet of REST API design guidelines and best practices, covering URL structure, HTTP methods, status codes, pagination, and OAuth2 security. It serves as a concise reference document rather than executable software.

## Use cases
- learn rest api design best practices
- how to structure rest api urls
- which http status codes to use in an api
- design pagination and filtering for api collections
- secure a rest api with oauth2
- api design review checklist

## When to choose
- you want a quick, opinionated reference for REST API design decisions
- you are reviewing or standardizing API conventions across a team
- you are learning REST fundamentals like resource naming and status codes

## When to avoid
- you need tooling or code, not guidelines
- you are building GraphQL or gRPC APIs rather than REST
- you need exhaustive, formally versioned API specifications

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: maintenance
- function: api-framework, documentation, security
- domain: apis, web-development, developer-tools, documentation
- platform: cli
- tags: cheat-sheet, api-design, rest, best-practices, guidelines, web-server

## Member repositories
- RestCheatSheet/api-cheat-sheet (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:49.271256+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:31:41.284255+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/RestCheatSheet/api-cheat-sheet (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:49.271256+00:00, sha 0a84211aa5b2)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.