When you use meaningful resource URIs, implement HATEOAS, and follow HTTP status codes semantically RESTful will definitely turn out the best API for use.

A well-designed RESTful API is:

• Resource-oriented: Uses clear, consistent URLs to represent resources.

• Stateless: Each request contains all info needed; no server-side session. • Uses standard HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE map to read, create, update, delete.

• Supports proper status codes: Reflect success, errors, and other outcomes clearly.

• Uses JSON (or similar) for payloads: Easy to parse and standardized.

• Versioned and documented: To maintain backward compatibility and ease adoption.

You know a RESTful API is well-designed when it feels simple and consistent to use: resources are clearly identified by clean URLs, actions rely on standard HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE instead of custom verbs, and responses return predictable status codes so you always know what happened. A good API also uses clear data formats like JSON, includes proper pagination and filtering for large results, and provides versioning so upgrades don’t break existing apps. Documentation and error messages should be straightforward, making it easy for you to build on top of it without guesswork. Together, these practices make an API intuitive, stable, and developer-friendly