What Is a Vote API? A Practical Guide to Read-Only Data
Start with a clear data contract: what a record means, where it came from, when it changed, and which actions an information API can actually perform.
Read the articleCATEGORY COLLECTION / 1 ARTICLE
API Design Articles
An API design begins with meaning: what a record represents, which operations are allowed, and how a reader can recognize missing information. This collection starts with those questions before discussing endpoints or payloads. The focus is on understandable contracts for voting-related information and clearly scoped community processes.
Use these guides to separate read-only information from actions that change a record. Pay attention to identifiers, status vocabulary, revision handling, and permissions. A concise response is useful only when its fields retain the meaning the reader needs. Before implementing an example, name the source and decide who owns its interpretation.
Put the ideas to work
Sketch the smallest useful response on paper, then annotate every field with its purpose. Try an empty response, an outdated response, and two conflicting sources. These exercises expose ambiguity before it becomes a public interface. The articles below supply examples and tradeoffs; they do not describe a hosted VoteAPI.com endpoint.
Questions to keep in view
- What does one record represent?
- Which states must the interface distinguish?
- Which actor may read or change the information?
- How will clients recognize an unavailable or revised record?
Read this collection.
Explore the topic guides
Use these focused pages to connect the article discussion to the wider VoteAPI.com guide.
Choose another starting point
The Lab connects API design to the purpose of the information and the people using it. Explore the complete collection to compare related questions and discover a useful next step.
Browse every Lab article