Build a Full-Stack MVP With Vanilla JS and a Clean REST API

What We Are Going to Build In this workshop, I am going to walk you through building a full-stack creature catalog — a filterable, searchable UI backed by a REST API — using nothing but vanilla JavaScript on the frontend. No React. No Vue. No build step. By the end, you will have: A clean REST API contract you can test with curl A vanilla JS frontend that fetches, renders, and filters data A clear architecture boundary between client and server A pattern you can reuse for every MVP you ship from here on out Let me show you a pattern I use in every project, and I think it will change how you think about frontend complexity at the MVP stage. Prerequisites Basic JavaScript (ES6+ syntax: template literals, async/await , destructuring) Familiarity with REST concepts (GET, POST, query parameters) A backend in any language that can serve JSON (I will use examples against a generic /api endpoint — Spring Boot, Express, FastAPI, whatever you have works) A modern browser (we are using built-in f