Can You Put a Body in REST API DELETE?

Problem

While building the wishlist API at Kakao Tech Campus, I ran into a URL design dilemma for the delete endpoint.

Original design:

DELETE /api/wishlist/{id}

Feedback I got: is {id} the wishlist ID or the product ID? It’s ambiguous.

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Mentor Feedback

“If the path is /api/wishlist/1, you’d expect 1 to be related to the wishlist—yet your design puts a product-related ID there. Just from looking at the URL, it’s hard to tell which identifier it is.”

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Attempt 1: Put in Body

What if I put the product ID in the request body?

DELETE /api/wishlist
Body: { "productId": 1 }

Turns out this isn’t recommended:

• HTTP spec allows body in DELETE, but servers may ignore it
• Some proxies or caches might strip the body
• It breaks RESTful conventions

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Attempt 2: Query Parameter

DELETE /api/wishlist?productId=1

This also felt awkward—query parameters on a DELETE just look off.

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Final Choice: Clear Path Variable

DELETE /api/wishlist/products/{productId}

Or shorter:

DELETE /api/wishlist/{productId}

I ended up sticking with path variables, but restructured the URL to clearly express the resource relationship.

/api/wishlist/products/{productId} is a bit long, but the intent—”delete a specific product from the wishlist”—is crystal clear.

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Lessons Learned

• In REST API design, URLs should clearly express resource relationships
• Body or query params in DELETE requests are generally discouraged
• Even if the URL gets longer, clarity beats brevity

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From Kakao Tech Campus 3rd cohort Gift API clone coding, summarizing mentor feedback.