Django REST Framework

API Best Practices

Versioning, throttling, and OpenAPI

API Best Practices

  • Version URLs: /api/v1/
  • Use appropriate status codes (201 create, 400 validation, 404 missing)
  • Throttle anonymous endpoints; rate-limit auth in production
  • Document with OpenAPI via drf-spectacular for client teams
  • Never expose stack traces in API JSON when DEBUG=False