An API is a contract across a network boundary. Pagination, retries, background work, and abuse limits must be explicit because the client cannot know whether a slow or interrupted request has already changed server state.
Topics in this track
- Cursor Pagination for Changing Collections — Page through records with a stable order and a bounded response size.
- Idempotent Write Requests and Lost Responses — Make a retry return the first result instead of repeating a side effect.
- Background Jobs and the Outbox Boundary — Record a business change and its follow-up work together.
- Rate Limits and Request Budgets — Bound work per caller while keeping response behavior predictable.
Connect with existing lessons
HTTP requests: keep method, status, and body contracts separate; Form submission: validate on the server and return field errors; Routing: validate path parameters and return a stable error shape.
Other broad tracks
Frontend Application Architecture; Data Persistence; Media and Live Updates; Offline and Device Capabilities; Deployment and Scale; Content Discovery and Structure.
Practice path
After the four lessons, build Project: paginated inspection feed with safe writes and take Web Development: data and API contracts quiz.
Further connections
API Mutation and Failure Contracts.
Further connections
Checkout and Payment State; Server-Priced Order Snapshots and Money Units.
Further connections
GraphQL Query and Resolver Boundaries; GraphQL Schema Nullability and Evolution.
Further connections
Express Request and Process Boundaries.
Further connections
Django Request and Persistence Boundaries.
Further connections
FastAPI Contract and Resource Boundaries.
Further connections
Laravel Policy, Query, and Queue Boundaries.
Further connections
Flask Context and Service Boundaries.
Further connections
Rails Request, Record, and Job Boundaries.