Sbrady, Software blog

I want to make the ideal self documenting REST API.

Essentially I believe it should be possible to create an API with a single starting point. A Developer could then navigate the site learn how it works.

I want the API to…

• Use hypermedia as the engine of application state (hateoas)
• Versioning using Hypermedia/Mime types
• Have Authentication requirements

I’ll achieve this by creating a simple social friend of a friend type app.

We’ll use:

• HAL
• Grails
• implement OPTIONS
• use Vnd.Error

Update: I’ve quite a bit of trouble getting grails HAL support working.

You can see some of the road blocks I ran into:

• grails HAL, incorrect self links
• incorrect self links
• Customize Link Rendering type with HAL in Grails?

You can see how far I haven gotten: perfect-rest-api. One interesting thing I found along the way is a nice way to setup restful routes in grails. Here is a gist.

Going forward I’m going to switch to trying out Rails with Roar

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