What OIP Should Take from REST

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What OIP Should Take from REST

§SELF — oip-from-rest

What this page is: A breakdown of which REST architectural principles OIP adopts, which it rejects, and what OIP adds that REST lacks. What it explains: REST's five core constraints and how OIP applies each one to model-to-model interaction. Why read it: To understand why OIP's design choices are not arbitrary — they extend a proven architectural style.

What REST Is

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for networked systems defined by Roy Fielding in his 2000 doctoral dissertation. A RESTful system organizes interaction around resources, each identified by a URL, manipulated through a small set of uniform operations, and represented in a standard format. The server does not store client state between requests.

Why It Matters

REST became the dominant architecture for web APIs because it scales. Statelessness lets servers handle any request without knowing prior history. Uniform interfaces let clients interact with any resource the same way. Cacheability reduces load. These properties matter more, not less, when the clients are autonomous models rather than human-driven applications.

The Key Idea

OIP treats every model-deployed object as a resource and every interaction as a stateless, cacheable, self-describing operation against that resource. OIP does not copy REST wholesale. OIP extends REST's constraints to fit a world where the clients are models, the operations are work objects, and the proof of execution is a first-class entity.

What OIP Takes from REST

The uniform interface. REST says one endpoint handles all operations on all resources. OIP takes this to its limit: a single dispatch door (/api/dispatch) receives every invocation. The specific operation is determined by the capability token and object key carried in the request, not by the URL path. One door. All objects.

Statelessness. Every request contains all information needed to process it. The server stores no client session, no connection context, no remembered state. OIP follows this: every invocation carries the full capability token and the full object key. The server does not need to know who sent the request or what they did before. The request is self-sufficient.

Resource identification. Every resource in REST has a unique URL. OIP extends this: every object has a unique URL, every receipt has a unique URL, every capability token is bound to a unique object URL. The URL is not just an address. It is the permanent identity of the thing.

HATEOAS (Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State). REST responses contain links to possible next actions, so a client can navigate the API without prior knowledge of its structure. OIP's §SELF blocks and capability records serve the same function for model consumption. A model receives a capability record and knows, from that record alone, what operations it can perform and where to send the next request. The response carries its own navigation instructions.

Cacheability. REST responses carry metadata indicating whether they can be cached and for how long. OIP receipts are immutable — once created, they never change. An immutable receipt is infinitely cacheable. Any cache, anywhere, can store it forever without risk of stale data.

What OIP Does Not Take from REST

REST's emphasis on CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete). CRUD assumes the resources are data records to be stored and modified. OIP's objects are not data resources. They are work objects — running processes, active capabilities, executable contracts. An OIP object performs work; it is not a row in a table. The CRUD mindset misleads because it treats everything as storage. OIP treats everything as execution.

What OIP Adds That REST Lacked

Capability tokens. REST relies on external authentication (API keys, OAuth, session cookies) to decide who can do what. OIP embeds the authority in the token itself. The capability token is the permission. This is capability security, not identity security.

Receipts. REST has no native concept of proof of execution. A REST response is a reply; an OIP receipt is a permanent, verifiable record that an operation occurred, signed by the executing object, stored at a URL, and referenceable forever.

Replay and repair. REST operations are fire-and-forget. If a request fails, the client retries blindly. OIP's receipt lineage lets a caller trace an operation through every stage, detect where it diverged from expectation, and repair the specific failed step without re-executing the whole chain.

Model-readable contracts. REST APIs require human-readable documentation (OpenAPI specs, etc.) that a model cannot interpret at runtime. OIP object contracts are structured so a model can read them, understand what operations are available, what parameters each requires, and what responses each produces — all without human intervention.

Sources

Fielding, Roy Thomas. Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Irvine, 2000. (Chapter 5 defines REST.)

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