REST APIs for Beginners: How Apps Talk to Each Other If you are learning web development or backend engineering, you will keep hearing about APIs . People say things like: "Call the API" "The frontend hits the API" "We need an endpoint for that" At first, that can sound more mysterious than it really is. Here is the simple version: An API is a way for one piece of software to ask another piece of software for data or actions. In this post, we will focus on REST APIs , because they are one of the most common kinds beginners run into. Start with a simple mental model Imagine a restaurant. You are the client The kitchen is the server The waiter is the API You do not walk into the kitchen and start cooking your own food. Instead, you give your request to the waiter. The waiter carries it to the kitchen and brings the response back. That is roughly how apps talk to each other. One app sends a request. Another app receives it, does some work, and sends back a response. So what does API mean?…