HATEOAS

Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS) is a constraint of the REST application architecture that distinguishes it from other network application architectures.

With HATEOAS, a client interacts with a network application whose application servers provide information dynamically through hypermedia. A REST client needs little to no prior knowledge about how to interact with an application or server beyond a generic understanding of hypermedia.

By contrast, clients and servers in Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) interact through a fixed interface shared through documentation or an interface description language (IDL).

The restrictions imposed by HATEOAS decouple client and server. This enables server functionality to evolve independently.

The term was coined in 2000 by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation.