---
title: REST API
label: Overview
order: 10
---

<Banner>
  A fully functional REST API is automatically generated from your Collection and Global configs.
</Banner>

All Payload API routes are mounted prefixed to your config's `routes.api` URL segment (default: `/api`).

**REST query parameters:**

- [depth](/docs/getting-started/concepts#depth) - automatically populates relationships and uploads
- [locale](/docs/configuration/localization#retrieving-localized-docs) - retrieves document(s) in a specific locale
- [fallback-locale](/docs/configuration/localization#retrieving-localized-docs) - specifies a fallback locale if no locale value exists

## Collections

Each collection is mounted using its `slug` value. For example, if a collection's slug is `users`, all corresponding routes will be mounted on `/api/users`.

**All CRUD operations are exposed as follows:**

| Method   | Path                        | Description                            |
| -------- | --------------------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| `GET`    | `/api/{collectionSlug}`     | Find paginated documents               |
| `GET`    | `/api/{collectionSlug}/:id` | Find a specific document by ID         |
| `POST`   | `/api/{collectionSlug}`     | Create a new document                  |
| `PUT`    | `/api/{collectionSlug}/:id` | Update a document by ID                |
| `DELETE` | `/api/{collectionSlug}/:id` | Delete an existing document by ID      |

##### Additional `find` query parameters

The `find` endpoint supports the following additional query parameters:

- [sort](/docs/queries/overview#sort) - sort by field
- [where](/docs/queries/overview) - pass a `where` query to constrain returned documents
- [limit](/docs/queries/pagination#pagination-controls) - limit the returned documents to a certain number
- [page](/docs/queries/pagination#pagination-controls) - get a specfic page of documents

## Globals

Globals cannot be created or deleted, so there are only two REST endpoints opened:

| Method   | Path                        | Description             |
| -------- | --------------------------- | ----------------------- |
| `GET`    | `/api/globals/{globalSlug}` | Get a global by slug    |
| `POST`   | `/api/globals/{globalSlug}` | Update a global by slug |