Implementing HATEOAS in Jakarta REST: A Comprehensive Developer’s Guide

HATEOAS, short for Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State, is a key concept in the design of RESTful APIs

It enables API clients to dynamically interact with a service by discovering available actions and resources through hypermedia links embedded in the API’s responses. This makes the API more adaptable to changes and easier to evolve over time. This approach enhances the self-descriptiveness of the API, making it more adaptable to changes and easier to evolve over time.

This guide is designed for Java and Jakarta EE developers who are familiar with RESTful API development and Jakarta REST (formerly JAX-RS), and are looking to enhance their APIs by implementing HATEOAS principles. By the end of this guide, you will be able to:

• Understand the core concepts of HATEOAS and its benefits in API design
• Refactor a basic JAX-RS resource into a HATEOAS-compliant endpoint
• Create and include hypermedia links in API responses
• Address common implementation considerations

Whether you’re building a new API or improving an existing one, this guide will help you to create more flexible, discoverable, futureproof and easy to evolve RESTful services