Standardize Flask API responses to a consistent JSON schema

[Aaravanand00]

Summary

Currently, Flask API endpoints return responses in slightly different formats.
Some routes return raw data directly (e.g., return jsonify(data), 200), while others return structured objects like:

{
"message": "...",
"status_code": "success"
}

This inconsistency makes frontend integration and future maintenance harder, as consumers of the API cannot reliably expect a consistent response structure.

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Proposed Improvement

Introduce a standardized JSON response schema for all backend endpoints. For example:

{
"success": true,
"message": "Optional human-readable message",
"data": { ... },
"error": null
}

For error cases:

{
"success": false,
"message": "Error description",
"data": null,
"error": "Detailed error info (optional)"
}

---

Benefits

• Predictable API contract for frontend
• Easier debugging and logging
• Cleaner long-term maintenance
• Foundation for potential API versioning

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Scope (Non-breaking)

This change can be implemented incrementally:

• Introduce a helper function (e.g., api_response(...))
• Refactor routes gradually without changing endpoint URLs
• Preserve existing status codes (200, 404, 500, etc.)
• This would not require frontend changes immediately, as existing response shapes can be wrapped progressively.

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I’d be happy to help draft a small helper utility to standardize responses across routes.

[linisha15]

@Aaravanand00 hey ! please review my pr and give me feedback if something needs to be changed and if everything looks good to you please merge my pr .