How to complete the challenge `GET /api/todos (200) ?_sortBy&_limit&_offset`

By Alan RichardsonPublished 2026-07-30

How to issue a GET request on a top level entity endpoint and combine sorting with pagination.

GET /api/todos (200) ?_sortBy&_limit&_offset

Issue a GET request on the /api/todos end point with sorting and pagination parameters, requesting the response in JSON format.

_sortBy=-id sorts todos by id from highest to lowest
_limit=5 asks for 5 returned todos
_offset=5 skips 5 todos after sorting
sorting is applied before pagination
if your current session has fewer todos after the offset, the response will contain fewer todos
double check that header Accept: application/json exists to ensure the filtered and sorted todo collection is visible as JSON

Basic Instructions

Issue a GET request to end point "/api/todos"
- https://apichallenges.com/api/todos
The request should have an X-CHALLENGER header to track challenge completion
The request should have an Accept: application/json header so the API returns todos in JSON format
Add _sortBy=-id, _limit=5, and _offset=5 as URL parameters:
- https://apichallenges.com/api/todos?_sortBy=-id&_limit=5&_offset=5
The response status code should be 200 because the request is accepted
Check that the response body contains no more than 5 todos and the ids are still descending

Try it now

GET /api/todos?_sortBy=-id&_limit=5&_offset=5 to sort and paginate todos

Example Request

> GET /api/todos?_sortBy=-id&_limit=5&_offset=5 HTTP/1.1
> Host: apichallenges.com
> User-Agent: rest-client
> X-CHALLENGER: x-challenger-guid
> Accept: application/json

Example Response

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Connection: close
< Content-Type: application/json
< X-Challenger: x-challenger-guid

Returned body:

{
  "todos": [
    { "id": 15, "title": "fifth page item", "doneStatus": false, "description": "" },
    { "id": 14, "title": "sixth page item", "doneStatus": false, "description": "" },
    { "id": 13, "title": "seventh page item", "doneStatus": false, "description": "" },
    { "id": 12, "title": "eighth page item", "doneStatus": false, "description": "" },
    { "id": 11, "title": "ninth page item", "doneStatus": false, "description": "" }
  ]
}

Lessons Learned

Sorting before pagination makes page contents predictable across repeated requests.
Pagination plus _sortBy needs assertions about global order, not just each page separately.
Changing sort direction should change which records appear on the first page.

Suggested Experiments

Request _sortBy=+id&_limit=2, then _sortBy=-id&_limit=2, and compare first-page ids.
Move from _offset=0 to _offset=2 with the same sort and check that the ordered sequence continues.

Experiment with this endpoint

How to complete the challenge GET /api/todos (200) ?_sortBy&_limit&_offset