03 Richardson Maturity Model

title: Richardson Maturity Model — Level 3 HATEOAS weight: 13 date: 2026-06-28 lastmod: 2026-06-28 description: Learn the Richardson Maturity Model levels from Level 0 (Swamp of POX) to Level 3 (HATEOAS) with examples showing increasingly RESTful API design progression. tags: [api-development, hateoas]

The Richardson Maturity Model defines four levels of REST adoption: Level 0 (one endpoint, one method), Level 1 (resource URIs), Level 2 (HTTP methods + status codes), and Level 3 (HATEOAS hypermedia controls).

```mermaid
flowchart TD
  A[Richardson Model] --> B[Level 0: Swamp of POX]
  A --> C[Level 1: Resources]
  A --> D[Level 2: HTTP Verbs]
  A --> E[Level 3: HATEOAS]
  B --> F[POST /api]
  C --> G[GET /users/42]
  D --> H[PUT /users/42 200]
  E --> I[Links + Actions]
  style A fill:#e1f5fe
  style E fill:#c8e6c9

Level 0: Single POST endpoint with action body (XML-RPC style). Level 1: Multiple URIs for different resources. Level 2: Proper HTTP methods and status codes. Level 3: Hypermedia links guide client navigation. Most practical APIs reach Level 2. True REST APIs reach Level 3.

What's Next

Now learn about links in HATEOAS in Hypermedia APIs and HATEOAS.