REST API pagination strategy wizard

Four pagination strategies cover almost every REST API: page-based, offset/limit, cursor-based, and keyset (seek-based). Each is right for some situations and bad for others. This wizard picks one for your situation, lays out all four side by side honestly, and generates a worked example endpoint with the right Link headers.

We’re opinionated: cursor-based for write-heavy APIs, keyset for large database-backed list endpoints, offset/limit or page-based only for small bounded datasets where deep-link URLs matter.

Modes

• Picker — a few questions about writes during pagination, dataset size, and whether shareable deep-link URLs matter. Walks out to a recommended strategy with the rationale.
• Reference — the four strategies, each with its URL shape, response envelope, RFC 8288 Link headers, strengths, real-world examples (Stripe, GitHub, Shopify), and the honest trade-offs.
• Builder — pick a strategy, fill in a resource name and page size, and get a copy-pasteable example request/response with proper Link headers.