Web API Overview

The ASP.NET Core web API is a framework for building HTTP services that can be accessed by various clients, such as web browsers and mobile devices. Typically, these services follow RESTRepresentational state transfer protocol.

The web API framework allows developers to create endpoints that respond to HTTP requests, typically providing data or performing actions. These APIs can handle various HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.

Web API endpoints don't return renderable UI components. Those are implemented by a separate client application that sends requests to the web API. The role of the web API is to either return data to the client or trigger some sort of action in the back end. Because web API applications don't have a user interface, they are often called "headless."