Glossary: APIGlossary

An API is a set of rules and protocols for two applications to communicate with each other, allowing them to interact and share data using a defined set of methods and data formats.

APIs provide an interface made of endpoints — URLs or URIs, each of which correspond to a specific operation to be performed on a specific resource, such as retrieving data, updating data, and deleting data. The client application makes requests to the API to perform an operation or provide data; the server application performs the API’s services and issues responses to the client’s requests.

Requests are made using HTTP methods, with each method specifying a different kind of action to be performed the resource at the endpoint:

• GET: Retrieve one or more resources from the server.
• POST: Send data to the server to create a new resource.
• PUT: Update an existing resource on the server.
• DELETE: Remove a resource from the server.