REST is a set of constraints for building a system. A RESTful interface is one that cleanly abstracts the underlying data store into one that is simple to use f

REST is a set of constraints for building a system. A RESTful interface is one that cleanly abstracts the underlying data store into one that is simple to use for third party systems. It's important to understand that a RESTful system doesn't necessarily expose a true model of the underlying data store. You could have an invoicing system that contains Customer and Invoice models. I see developers confusing that to mean "you have /customer/ and /invoice/ endpoints and never the twain shall meet". If you need to embed customer details into invoices and/or invoice details into customers, then feel free to do that if it makes sense for your application. There's more to it than that, and I've mostly just described how common HTTP-based RESTful systems work. Fielding gave a lot more detail in his thesis: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arc... I'd recommend reading it, as it helps clarify a few things. Also read up on the term HATEOAS, which details how information should be interlinked where possible, so your system can be (theoretically) crawled for more information.