API Routes

Barry supports building JSON-based API endpoints using a dedicated `api/` directory. These routes let you respond to HTTP requests with data instead of HTML. Each route can use Go code to access request data, handle parameters, and return structured JSON.

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What Are API Routes?

API routes let you expose server-side functionality via HTTP endpoints that return JSON responses. These are located inside the api/ directory and work just like your regular routes/ files — but instead of rendering HTML, they respond with data.

Each endpoint is backed by an index.go or index.server.go file that exports a HandleAPI function.

Basic Example

// api/ping/index.go
package ping

import "net/http"

func HandleAPI(r *http.Request, params map[string]string) (interface{}, error) {
	return map[string]interface{}{
		"pong": true,
	}, nil
}

Requesting /api/ping will return:

{"pong": true}

File-Based Routing

Like normal routes, API endpoints use folders to define paths and parameters:

/api
├── ping/
│   └── index.go              → /api/ping
├── user/
│   └── _id/
│       └── index.go          → /api/user/123
└── hello/
    └── _name/
        └── index.server.go   → /api/hello/barry

Use _param folders to capture dynamic segments. These will be available in the params map passed to HandleAPI.

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