AI engineering glossary · Prompt context engineering
What is Stateless API?
Stateless API: A design where the server keeps no record of earlier requests, so every call must carry all the information needed. Most language model APIs work this way: the client sends the whole conversation each time. It simplifies scaling but makes token use grow with conversation length.
Stateless API: an example
On turn 10 of a chat, your code sends all 10 user messages and 9 replies to the API again.
Related terms
More Prompt context engineering terms
- Step-back prompting
- Stop sequence
- Structured extraction
- Structured output
- System prompt
- Task decomposition
- Template variable
- Thinking budget
Where you learn it
Stateless API is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.