HTTP Methods Reference

When to use each method, idempotency, safety, and cacheability at a glance.

Method	Description	Body	Idempotent	Safe	Cacheable
GET	Retrieve a resource. Should not modify server state. Fetching data: user profiles, product lists, search results.	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
POST	Submit data to create a new resource or trigger a process. Creating records, submitting forms, uploading files.	Yes	No	No	Rarely
PUT	Replace a resource entirely with the request body. Full update of a resource. Client sends the complete representation.	Yes	Yes	No	No
PATCH	Apply partial modifications to a resource. Partial update: change just the email field on a user record.	Yes	No*	No	No
DELETE	Remove a resource. Deleting records. Should return 204 on success, 404 if already gone.	Optional	Yes	No	No
HEAD	Same as GET but without the response body. Checking if a resource exists, reading Content-Length before downloading.	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
OPTIONS	Describe the communication options for a resource. CORS preflight requests. Returns allowed methods and headers.	No	Yes	Yes	No

*PATCH can be idempotent depending on implementation, but the spec does not guarantee it.