How to Build a REST API Client Using Java HttpClient and Jackson

A technical tutorial published on DEV Community demonstrates how to combine Java's built-in HttpClient with the Jackson library to build a reusable REST API client. The guide covers sending GET and POST requests, serializing Java objects to JSON, and deserializing JSON responses into typed Java objects. It uses Java records as lightweight, immutable data models and ObjectMapper as the central translation layer between JSON and Java. The tutorial also addresses practical concerns such as error handling, bearer-token authentication, request timeouts, and reusing shared client instances. By the end, readers are shown how to produce client code that closely resembles production-ready patterns without relying on heavyweight third-party frameworks.