To manage this complexity, version your API. Versioning helps you iterate faster when the needed changes are identified.
When to Version
APIs only need to be up-versioned when a breaking change is made. Breaking changes include:
- a change in the format of the response data for one or more calls
- a change in the request or response type (i.e. changing an integer to a float)
- removing any part of the API.
Breaking changes should always result in a change to the major version number for an API or content response type.
Non-breaking changes, such as adding new endpoints or new response parameters, do not require a change to the major version number. However, it can be helpful to track the minor versions of APIs when changes are made to support customers who may be receiving cached versions of data or may be experiencing other API issues.
How to Version
REST doesn’t provide for any specific versioning guidelines but the more commonly used approaches fall into three categories:
URI Versioning
Using the URI is the most straightforward approach (and most commonly used as well) though it does violate the principle that a URI should refer to a unique resource. You are also guaranteed to break client integration when a version is updated.
e.g.
http://api.example.com/v1 http://apiv1.example.com
The version need not be numeric, nor specified using the “v[x]” syntax. Alternatives include dates, project names, seasons or other identifiers that are meaningful enough to the team producing the APIs and flexible enough to change as the versions change.
Versioning using Custom Request Header
A custom header (e.g. Accept-version) allows you to preserve your URIs between versions though it is effectively a duplicate of the content negotiation behavior implemented by the existing Accept header.
e.g.
Accept-version: v1 Accept-version: v2
Versioning using Accept header
Content negotiation may let you preserve a clean set of URLs but you still have to deal with the complexity of serving different versions of content somewhere. This burden tends to be moved up the stack to your API controllers which become responsible for figuring out which version of a resource to send. The end result tends to be a more complex API as clients have to know which headers to specify before requesting a resource.
e.g.
Accept: application/vnd.example.v1+json Accept: application/vnd.example+json;version=1.0
In the real world, an API is never going to be completely stable. So it’s important how this change is managed. A well documented and gradual deprecation of API can be an acceptable practice for most of the APIs.
Stefano says
Actually Roy Fielding stated that including the version in the URL is really against REST.
Fielding: “By versioning, I meant sticking client-visible interface numbers inside various names so that the client labels every interaction as belonging to a given version of that API.
Unfortunately, versioning interface names only manages change for the API owner’s sake. That is a myopic view of interface design: one where the owner’s desire for control ignores the customer’s need for continuity.”
reference: https://www.infoq.com/articles/roy-fielding-on-versioning/
Jonathan says
How do you have a service indicate version in the response? Currently we’re using Content-Type headers. For example, with version 1.3 of a service called “customers”, we’d have something like “Content-Type: application/vnd.com.ourcompany.customers.v1-3+json”. How do you prefer to do it?
Admin says
Having version numbers in media-types is perhaps the best way to implement versioning. You are already using it.
Charles says
This should apply to the Requests as well not just the Responses.
Admin says
Yes. True.
Jonathan says
The article is addressing requests. URIs and Accept headers are for requests.
Shri says
Do you deploy various versions as single service Or it should be two separate services running in different pods
Mark says
A third option would be to include a version key:value hint in the JSON body.
Dennis says
That won’t be of much use with GET.