vocabulary:
  name: REST Services Vocabulary
  description: >-
    Domain vocabulary for RESTful service design, implementation, deployment,
    and management, covering service patterns, HTTP semantics, API lifecycle
    practices, and operational concerns for REST-based web services.
  created: '2026-05-02'
  modified: '2026-05-02'
  terms:
    - term: REST Service
      definition: >-
        A web service that conforms to the REST architectural constraints,
        exposing resources via URI-addressable endpoints and communicating
        through standard HTTP methods and status codes.
      tags:
        - Architecture
        - Foundational
    - term: Service Contract
      definition: >-
        A formal definition of a REST service's capabilities, including its
        endpoints, supported methods, request and response formats, and
        authentication requirements. Commonly expressed as an OpenAPI document.
      tags:
        - API Design
        - Documentation
    - term: Resource Modeling
      definition: >-
        The practice of identifying domain entities and mapping them to REST
        resources with appropriate URI structures, relationships, and HTTP
        semantics.
      tags:
        - API Design
        - Pattern
    - term: CRUD
      definition: >-
        Create, Read, Update, Delete. The four basic operations on data resources
        mapped to HTTP methods: POST (Create), GET (Read), PUT/PATCH (Update),
        DELETE (Delete).
      tags:
        - Pattern
        - Operations
    - term: Collection Resource
      definition: >-
        A REST resource representing a list of entities (e.g., /users). Supports
        GET to list members, POST to create a new member, and typically pagination.
      tags:
        - API Design
        - Pattern
    - term: Singleton Resource
      definition: >-
        A REST resource representing a single entity identified by a unique
        identifier (e.g., /users/123). Supports GET, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE.
      tags:
        - API Design
        - Pattern
    - term: Sub-Resource
      definition: >-
        A REST resource that is nested under a parent resource to represent
        relationships (e.g., /users/123/orders). Indicates a containment or
        ownership relationship.
      tags:
        - API Design
        - Pattern
    - term: Hypermedia
      definition: >-
        Links embedded in REST API responses that guide clients to related
        resources and available transitions, enabling dynamic navigation of
        the API without hardcoded URLs.
      tags:
        - Architecture
        - HATEOAS
    - term: API Gateway
      definition: >-
        A server that acts as a single entry point for REST API requests,
        providing routing, authentication, rate limiting, logging, and protocol
        translation for backend services.
      tags:
        - Infrastructure
        - Operations
    - term: Service Discovery
      definition: >-
        The mechanism by which clients locate the network addresses of available
        REST services, particularly in microservices architectures where service
        locations are dynamic.
      tags:
        - Microservices
        - Operations
    - term: Microservice
      definition: >-
        An architectural style where an application is built as a collection of
        small, independently deployable services, each exposing a REST API and
        responsible for a bounded domain capability.
      tags:
        - Architecture
        - Microservices
    - term: Load Balancing
      definition: >-
        Distributing incoming REST API requests across multiple service instances
        to improve throughput, reduce latency, and ensure availability.
      tags:
        - Infrastructure
        - Operations
    - term: Circuit Breaker
      definition: >-
        A resilience pattern that prevents a REST client from repeatedly calling
        a failing service by detecting failures and opening a circuit that returns
        errors immediately until the service recovers.
      tags:
        - Resilience
        - Pattern
    - term: Throttling
      definition: >-
        Server-side enforcement of request rate limits to protect REST service
        capacity, preventing individual clients from consuming excessive resources.
      tags:
        - Operations
        - Security
    - term: Service Mesh
      definition: >-
        Infrastructure layer that manages REST service-to-service communication,
        providing service discovery, load balancing, encryption, observability,
        and resilience without changes to application code.
      tags:
        - Infrastructure
        - Microservices
    - term: API Lifecycle
      definition: >-
        The stages of a REST API from initial design through publication,
        versioning, deprecation, and retirement, including governance processes
        for managing change.
      tags:
        - Governance
        - Operations
    - term: Caching
      definition: >-
        Storing REST API responses to serve future requests without regenerating
        them. Controlled via Cache-Control, ETag, and Last-Modified HTTP headers.
      tags:
        - Performance
        - HTTP