handymanServices & Tools
extensionCommon Features
extensionHATEOAS Navigation
Hypermedia APIs include in-response links and link relations so clients can discover available state transitions at runtime rather than hard-coding URI templates against documentation.
extensionStandardized Hypermedia Formats
Established formats such as HAL, JSON:API, Siren, Collection+JSON, Hydra, ALPS, UBER, Mason, and Verbose provide structured ways to embed links, actions, and metadata inside API responses.
extensionWeb Linking via Link Headers
RFC 5988 and RFC 8288 define the HTTP Link header and the Web Linking model, including the IANA Link Relations registry that gives shared meaning to rel values across APIs.
extensionLinked Data and Semantic Hypermedia
JSON-LD, Hydra, schema.org, and the broader RDF stack extend hypermedia with shared vocabularies, enabling semantic interoperability between APIs, search engines, and knowledge graphs.
extensionSelf-Describing API Catalogs
RFC 9264 api-catalog, APIs.json, and similar discovery documents act as hypermedia entry points that link a host to its APIs, OpenAPI specs, terms of service, and policies.
extensionHypermedia Frameworks and Libraries
Frameworks like Spring HATEOAS, Spring Data REST, and Apicurio provide implementation support for emitting HAL, HAL-FORMS, JSON:API, and Collection+JSON responses from server code.
task_altUse Cases
task_altEvolvable Long-Lived APIs
HATEOAS-based APIs allow servers to evolve URI structures, add new affordances, and deprecate endpoints over time while clients continue to navigate by link relations rather than hard-coded paths.
task_altDomain-Driven Project Management APIs
OpenProject exposes work packages, projects, users, and attachments through a HAL+JSON hypermedia API where every resource embeds links to related resources and available actions.
task_altStandardized CRUD via JSON:API
Patreon, MBTA, Teamtailor, and Drupal expose their resources via JSON:API, providing a consistent specification for fetching, including related resources, filtering, sorting, and pagination across very different domains.
task_altSemantic Search and Structured Data
Schema.org and JSON-LD allow APIs and websites to publish machine-readable Linked Data that search engines, agents, and aggregators can consume without bespoke parsers.
task_altAPI Discovery and Catalogs
APIs.json and RFC 9264 api-catalog documents act as hypermedia entry points that let crawlers, tooling, and AI agents discover an organization's APIs, specifications, and policies from a single well-known URL.
task_altHypermedia-Driven Web Apps
Approaches like htmx, hyperview, and Hypermedia Systems return HTML fragments and hypermedia controls directly to the client, simplifying applications by treating HTML itself as the hypermedia format.
integration_instructionsIntegrations
integration_instructionsHAL (Hypertext Application Language)
A minimal hypermedia format for JSON and XML that embeds _links and _embedded resources, widely used by APIs such as OpenProject, Reverb, and Spring Data REST.
integration_instructionsJSON:API
A specification for building APIs in JSON that standardizes resource objects, relationships, includes, filtering, sorting, and pagination, used by Patreon, MBTA, Teamtailor, and Drupal.
integration_instructionsSiren
A hypermedia specification for representing entities, their classes, properties, actions, and links, designed for rich, action-oriented hypermedia clients.
integration_instructionsCollection+JSON
A JSON-based hypermedia format from Mike Amundsen for representing collections of items with queries and templates for write operations.
integration_instructionsJSON-LD and Hydra
JSON-LD provides a JSON syntax for Linked Data; Hydra extends it with a vocabulary for describing hypermedia-driven Web APIs including operations, classes, and supported properties.
integration_instructionsALPS (Application-Level Profile Semantics)
A profile description format for documenting semantic descriptors and state transitions independent of any single media type.
integration_instructionsWeb Linking (RFC 5988 / RFC 8288)
IETF specifications defining the HTTP Link header and a model for typed web links, along with the IANA Link Relations registry shared across hypermedia formats.
integration_instructionsSpring HATEOAS
A library for building hypermedia-driven REST APIs in Spring, supporting HAL, HAL-FORMS, Collection+JSON, and UBER, with first-class integration into Spring Data REST.
articleLatest API Stories
Most recent stories relevant to Hypermedia, pulled from across the API Evangelist network blog feeds.