05 Actions

title: Actions in HATEOAS Hypermedia APIs weight: 15 date: 2026-06-28 lastmod: 2026-06-28 description: Design HATEOAS actions that show available state transitions including conditional actions based on resource state, method hints, and request body schemas for forms. tags: [api-development, hateoas]

HATEOAS actions represent state transitions available on a resource, conditionally included based on current state, with method hints (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) and optional request body schemas for form-like interactions.

```python
{
    "order_id": 42,
    "status": "pending",
    "total": 150.00,
    "_links": {
        "self": {"href": "/orders/42", "method": "GET"},
        "pay": {
            "href": "/orders/42/payment",
            "method": "POST",
            "rel": "action",
            "schema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "payment_method": {"type": "string", "enum": ["credit_card", "paypal"]},
                    "amount": {"type": "number", "minimum": 0.01}
                },
                "required": ["payment_method", "amount"]
            }
        },
        "cancel": {
            "href": "/orders/42",
            "method": "DELETE",
            "rel": "action"
        }
    }
}

# After payment, status changes to "paid" and pay link is removed

What's Next

Now learn about link formats in Hypermedia APIs and HATEOAS.