How to Design URL for REST API?

While designing the rest API, deciding URL is a very important part as it’s the entry point to your API.
The key principles of REST involve separating your API into logical resources.

URL Design Rules

• Keep it simple
• This is not the method or class name
• Forward slash separator (/) must be used to indicate a hierarchical relationship
• Lowercase letters should be preferred in URI paths
• Don’t use verbs in the base URLs
  • If you follow method driven approach while designing a URL will end up in verbs in the URL
• Resource Names don’t mix up singular and plural nouns, use only plural nouns for all resources

Example of the Orders API

GET /orders # Retrieves a list of orders
GET /orders/1 # Retrieves a specific order 1
POST /orders # Creates a new order
PUT /orders/1 # Updates order 1
PATCH /orders/1 # Partially updates order 1
DELETE /orders/1 # Deletes order 1

Resource Relations

One of the principles of the RESTful architecture style is that these relationships are expressed by hyperlinks to the representation of a resource.

Example of the OrderItems in Orders API

GET /orders/1/orderitems # Retrieves a list of orderitems for order 1
GET /orders/1/orderitems/1 # Retrieves 1 orderitem for order 1
POST /orders/1/orderitems # Creates a new order
PUT /orders/1/orderitems/1 # Updates 1 orderitem for order 1
PATCH /orders/1/orderitems/1 # Partially updates 1 orderitem for order 1
DELETE /orders/1/orderitems/1 # Deletes 1 orderitem for order 1