Question

In an API architecture, which design constraint explicitly requires that the server does not store any client context between requests?

Accepted Answer

The design constraint that explicitly requires the server to avoid storing client context between requests is known as statelessness. In a stateless architecture, every individual request from a client to a server must contain all the information necessary for the server to understand and process that request. This means the server cannot rely on any session data, user state, or temporary history saved from previous interactions. Because the server does not store the state of the client, it treats every incoming request as an entirely new and independent transaction. To achieve this, the client is responsible for sending all required data, such as authentication tokens or parameters, within each request header or body. An example of this is a REST API using JSON Web Tokens. Instead of the server storing a session ID in its memory to remember who a logged-in user is, the client sends the token with every request. The server verifies the token independently each time, ensuring it never has to remember the client&#x27;s previous activity. This approach improves system scalability because any server instance can handle any incoming request without needing access to a shared data store of active user sessions.

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In an API architecture, which design constraint explicitly requires that the server does not store any client context between requests?