04 Links Rel Href

title: Hypermedia Links — rel and href Attributes weight: 14 date: 2026-06-28 lastmod: 2026-06-28 description: Master hypermedia link structures in HATEOAS including the rel (relationship) and href (target) attributes, link relations (self, next, edit), and action links. tags: [api-development, hateoas]

Hypermedia links use two primary attributes: rel describes the relationship (self, edit, delete, next, prev) and href provides the target URI. Additional attributes like method, type, and title enrich the link with context for client processing.

```python
{
    "_links": {
        "self": {
            "href": "/api/v1/orders/42",
            "rel": "self",
            "method": "GET",
            "type": "application/json"
        },
        "update": {
            "href": "/api/v1/orders/42",
            "rel": "edit",
            "method": "PUT"
        },
        "cancel": {
            "href": "/api/v1/orders/42/cancel",
            "rel": "action",
            "method": "POST"
        },
        "customer": {
            "href": "/api/v1/users/7",
            "rel": "related",
            "title": "Order customer"
        },
        "items": {
            "href": "/api/v1/orders/42/items",
            "rel": "collection"
        },
        "payment": {
            "href": "/api/v1/orders/42/payment",
            "rel": "payment",
            "method": "POST",
            "schema": {"type": "object", "properties": {"amount": {"type": "number"}}}
        }
    }
}

What's Next

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