How to Evolve REST and GraphQL APIs Without Breaking Existing Clients
Every deployed API acts as a contract with its consumers, meaning changes to fields, endpoints, or response shapes can break clients that cannot be force-updated. REST APIs support four versioning strategies — URI path, query parameter, custom header, and content negotiation — each with distinct tradeoffs for public versus internal use. Not all changes require a version bump; adding new optional fields or endpoints is safe, while removing fields or changing types demands a new version. When breaking changes are unavoidable, both old and new versions should run simultaneously until usage data confirms the older version is no longer in use. GraphQL takes a different approach by rejecting versioning altogether, favoring schema evolution techniques to maintain backward compatibility as systems grow.
This is an AI-generated summary. ShortSingh links to the original source for the complete article.
Discussion (0)
Log in to join the discussion and vote.
Log in