REST, or Representational State Transfer, is an architectural style that is characterized by its stateless nature, meaning each request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and complete the request without relying on any stored context on the server. This increases reliability and scalability. However, 'stateful' is not a guiding principle of REST; instead, it is 'statelessness' that is a core principle. The other main guiding principles include a uniform interface, cacheability, and a layered system