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  • I do like the clear separation. In fact, I would make it even more explicit and have part of the path be public (unauthenticated traffic), private (authenticated traffic), or admin (administration traffic) so no mix-up is possible. Commented Jun 3, 2025 at 12:55
  • @MatthieuM. And then your business rules changes and you have to clean up a mess of paths 😅 . Commented Jun 3, 2025 at 14:22
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    @DavidMulder: I could see public-vs-private being blurry -- specifically, I could public endpoints becoming private -- but opening admin endpoints to the general public is a terrible idea in general, security-wise: you're better off redoing a new endpoint from scratch. Commented Jun 3, 2025 at 14:24
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    @GregBurghardt I don't have a problem with /api/users/current . Even have done it myself, although I guess in a perfect world one might not do it. It did end up in the same codepath though as admin level user updates (just an if id equals 'current' then id = currentUserId). My comment was purely in response to Matthieu M's comment with which I did strongly disagree. Commented Jun 3, 2025 at 15:06
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    @AaronDufour - you would be absolutely correct. I updated my answer. The description of a 401 is "unauthorized" when they really meant "unauthenticated". At least, to me, unauthorized means you are authenticated, but you lack permission. Commented Jun 4, 2025 at 12:10