Endpoint
One specific address on an API: a method plus a path, like POST /v1/customers. The exact thing you call.
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What it is
An endpoint is one callable address on an API: a method plus a path. GET /v1/customers and POST /v1/customers share a URL but are two different endpoints, because the verb changes what happens. Each one has its own inputs (path params, query params, body), its own response shape, its own auth requirement, and often its own rate limit.
When someone says 'call the endpoint', they mean that exact combination, and it is the unit everything else is organized around: docs pages, OpenAPI entries, permission scopes, monitoring dashboards. If you are building the API, one endpoint should do one job well; resist the do-everything /api/handler that switches on an action field in the body, because it breaks caching, logging, and every tool that reads your routes.
Frequent confusion: the base URL is not the endpoint. https://api.stripe.com is the base, /v1/charges is the path, and POST /v1/charges is the endpoint. A common source of 404s while integrating is stitching those together wrong: a missing version segment, a doubled or dropped slash, a staging host, or a trailing slash the router treats as a different route.
Ask AI for it
Add a new endpoint to this API: <METHOD> <path>. Define the request shape (path params, query params, and JSON body) with a validation schema, define the response shape, and reject anything that does not match with 422 and per-field errors. Require auth, apply the same middleware and error envelope the existing routes use, register it in the OpenAPI spec, and write tests for the happy path, unauthorized, not found, and invalid input.