there is no right answer it depends on what you need / the budget / metrics.

The only thing, that's good advice ... stay small and agnostic till you can't.

Design your API before implementing it.

• how should the endpoints work -> stay consistent
• how should it be secured

try to keep a consistent response, try to send some metadata as well.

In the end having a small well designed API allows you to replace the agnostic parts with a framework of your choice, should there ever be a need.

Important -> rest api design is functional ... don't try to hack in side effects to the global state -> it would break the functional concept.

And I would transform this question to a poll so you can check the communities taste :)

It depends upon the project specific requirement.