Best Practices

Guidelines and recommendations for optimal API usage and performance

API Usage Guidelines

Do's

  • • Use pagination for large result sets
  • • Include only necessary relationships
  • • Cache reference data (genres, countries)
  • • Implement proper error handling
  • • Use filtering and sorting parameters

Don'ts

  • • Don't fetch all data without pagination
  • • Don't ignore HTTP status codes
  • • Don't hardcode resource IDs
  • • Don't skip input validation
  • • Don't ignore rate limiting

Performance Optimization

Efficient Queries

# Good: Include only needed relationships
GET /albums?include=label,primary-genre

# Good: Use pagination
GET /tracks?page[size]=20&page[number]=1

# Good: Filter results
GET /albums?filter[label]=5&sort=-created-at

Caching Strategy

  • • Cache genres, languages, and countries
  • • Use ETags for conditional requests
  • • Implement client-side caching
  • • Set appropriate cache durations

Security Recommendations

Authentication

  • • Store tokens securely
  • • Implement token refresh logic
  • • Use HTTPS for all requests
  • • Never expose tokens in URLs

Data Protection

  • • Validate all input data
  • • Sanitize user content
  • • Follow data privacy regulations
  • • Implement proper logging