Why don't AI coding tools like REST?
16 points - yesterday at 7:26 PM
Is it just me, or do AI coding tools tend to generate RPC-style endpoints and POST methods (even when GET is clearly all that is needed) instead of following RESTful conventions?
Given how advanced these models are, I'm wondering if this is intentional. Is AI saying it has determined that strict REST isn’t a practical standard all around? Or is it just a byproduct of token efficiency or....?
I know I can steer the output with better prompting, but I'm curious whether there's a real underlying reason for this almost all-the-time output.
preetigagarwal
yesterday at 9:59 PM
REST APIs are deceptively simple on the surface but notoriously inconsistent in practice — different teams implement auth, pagination, and error handling completely differently. AI tools struggle because there's no single 'correct' REST — every API is its own dialect. GraphQL and gRPC have stricter contracts which makes them easier for AI to reason about. The irony is that this inconsistency is also why REST APIs have so many security vulnerabilities — no standard means no standard security either.
djyde
yesterday at 8:46 PM
What model are you using? I don't think I've encountered it before. But then again, as long as you explicitly instruct an AI to follow REST, it usually will.
gray_wolf_99
yesterday at 8:52 PM
I have been using VScode with GitHub AI assistant and I asked the AI many times to set up the REST API it did work
dbeyzade
yesterday at 8:18 PM
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