What criteria do you use when choosing an HTTP method?

When choosing an HTTP method, I consider its semantics and the task of the operation:

• GET — for retrieving data without changing the server state. Safe and idempotent.
• POST — for creating new resources or performing operations that change state. Not idempotent.
• PUT — for completely updating a resource. Idempotent.
• PATCH — for partial updates to a resource. Usually not idempotent.
• DELETE — for deleting a resource. Idempotent.

Criteria for selection:

• Do I need to change the server state? If not — GET.
• Creating a new resource? — POST.
• Fully updating an existing one? — PUT.
• Partially updating? — PATCH.
• Deleting? — DELETE.

Also consider idempotency (repeating requests without changing the result), safety, and cacheability. For example, GET requests can be cached, POST — cannot.

Example: to get a list of users — GET /users, to create a new one — POST /users, to update user data — PUT /users/{id}.