Building REST API - separate requests

Question

I am building an API and am a little unsure whether it would be better to have a request that brings back all information relating to a resource, or just bring back info separately according to tasks that need carrying out. For example, I have a messages resource and am struggling to decide whether to bring back all message information in one go. OR have a separate request for unread messages, a separate request for a list of messages and another request for a single message.

What is the proper way? I am tempted to keep them all separate but then worrya bout having to do too many requests.

Answer 1

Stop worrying and just do .

I like to keep things separate in the beginning, and at some point, I realise that request x always followed by request y , so I'll just merge those two. You won't know what you'll need until you're working on it...