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What are idempotent APIs and why are they needed?

Senior NodeJS
Quick Answer Idempotent APIs produce the same result whether called once or multiple times with the same input. Critical for retry logic รขโ‚ฌโ€ if a payment request times out and the client retries, you must not charge twice. Implement via idempotency keys (client sends a unique ID per operation; server deduplicates using it). PUT and DELETE are naturally idempotent; POST is not.

Answer

Idempotent APIs produce the same result regardless of repeated calls, crucial for retries and reliability.
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