The WordPress REST API provides a RESTful JSON interface for core WordPress data types, permitting the development of modern API-driven web applications within the WordPress ecosystem. I began contributing to the project in early 2014 as a part of my role at Bocoup, where we used the API (initially developed as a stand-alone plugin) in several large-scale projects. In the fall of 2016 I assumed a lead role in the project to manage the effort to merge the API into WordPress itself, resulting in the API’s inclusion in WordPress 4.7—delivering a REST API to 28% of the internet.1 I currently serve as the design lead for the REST API focus area, one of the three priority focuses of WordPress core development in 2017.
While developing a Node.js application that interacted with the REST API I also created and published the “wpapi” npm package, an isomorphic JavaScript client with a fluent chaining interface for querying for remote WordPress data. My goal for the wpapi package is to provide the simplest and most intuitive tool for interacting with the WordPress REST API from JavaScript, whether on the client or the server. (And because people ask — yes, that is my library’s official logo; and I have no regrets.)