Relationships, Links, and Resource Navigation

Opening an order is often just one step in a larger task. A customer may next want to track its delivery, so the order response needs some way to connect to shipment information. It could contain a shipment ID, a URL to follow, or the shipment details themselves. Each choice gives the client different information and creates different dependencies between requests.

Relationship design decides how resources refer to each other. Navigation design decides how clients use those references to continue a task.

This chapter explains identifiers, links, embedded data, and discoverable operations through a fictional bookstore API.