Cursor pagination

Cursor pagination is a version of pagination used to retrieve large or changing response chunks while preserving ordering and avoiding performance issues. Cursor pagination does not accept page or offset pagination parameters, or allow for the "jump to page" functionality, which speeds up data retrieval on the server.

What is a cursor?

A cursor in cursor pagination is a reference point sent by the server to the client, indicating from where the next set of response chunks should start.

A cursor can be:

1. An id - string or number.
2. A timestamp - created_at or updated_at for time-ordered data.
3. A base64 encoded string.

Cursor pagination parameters

Cursor pagination parameters are arguments controlling how large the paginated response will be when returned from the server.

Common cursor pagination arguments are:

Argument	Type	Purpose	Example
limit	number	Specifies the number of chunks to include.	limit=20
cursor	number or string	Indicates from where the next set of response chunks should start. Can be used to load "previous" or "next" response chunks.	cursor=4

Cursor pagination variants

Cursor pagination has 2 variants:

1. Single-direction cursor pagination.
2. Bi-directional cursor pagination.