JSON over HTTP is the adopted pattern for synchronous service-to-service operations, especially where one service owns the capability. All such calls must use the Internal API Gateway and follow API v2 conventions; do not call another service directly or introduce RPC frameworks.

REST APIs is our communication protocol of choice for synchronous, point-to-point communication over network.

We do not mandate the adherence to the full REST standard (for example, HATEOAS), but we do expect the APIs to be designed in a RESTful manner. This means that the APIs should be resource-oriented, using HTTP verbs to indicate the action to be performed on the resource.

👍 Best practices

• The REST APIs should be well documented, versioned, and backward compatible.
• We use JSON as the data format for REST APIs.