API Endpoints: Just URLs

An API endpoint is nothing mysterious. It's a specific URL that does a specific thing.

Here's a real example. Open-Meteo is a free weather API. One of its endpoints looks like this:

https://api.open-meteo.com/v9.0.256/forecast?latitude=51.5074&longitude=-0.1278&current=temperature_2m

This is just a URL. You can paste it into your browser and it works. The response is JSON (a structured format for data):

{
  "latitude": 51.5074,
  "longitude": -0.1278,
  "current": {
    "time": "2024-03-08T14:30",
    "temperature_2m": 12.5
  }
}

That URL is the endpoint. The parts after the ? are parameters — they customize the request. You're asking: "Give me the current temperature at this latitude and longitude." The API returns the answer as JSON.

Every API has multiple endpoints. One might fetch data, another might create a record, another might update an existing record. The API documentation lists all the endpoints and what each one does.