OData (Open Data Protocol) is a standard for building RESTful APIs with built-in querying capabilities. By decorating an ASP.NET Web API controller action with [EnableQuery] and returning IQueryable, you get filtering, sorting, pagination, field selection, and nested object expansion for free — with zero additional query code. When combined with Entity Framework, OData translates query parameters directly into optimized SQL statements, avoiding over-fetching. Setup requires installing the Microsoft.AspNetCore.OData NuGet package and configuring an Entity Data Model (EDM). The approach reduces boilerplate, improves performance by moving filtering logic server-side, and eliminates coordination overhead between client and server teams.
