diff --git a/app/controllers/application_controller.rb b/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
index 5e992f32a3..162975a831 100644
--- a/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
+++ b/app/controllers/application_controller.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 # frozen_string_literal: true
-class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
+class ApplicationController < ActionController::API
   include ActionView::Helpers::UrlHelper
   include ActionView::Helpers::DateHelper
   include ActionView::Helpers::TextHelper
diff --git a/config/application.rb b/config/application.rb
index 4ecf5c5253..44c5a6a98d 100644
--- a/config/application.rb
+++ b/config/application.rb
@@ -10,6 +10,8 @@
 
 module Ifme
   class Application < Rails::Application
+    # Configuration needed for changing an existing Rails app to API server
+    config.api_only = true
     # Initialize configuration defaults for originally generated Rails version.
     config.load_defaults 6.0
 
diff --git a/config/environments/development.rb b/config/environments/development.rb
index a7c4e64b82..fdf767724b 100644
--- a/config/environments/development.rb
+++ b/config/environments/development.rb
@@ -86,4 +86,10 @@
 
   config.action_controller.default_url_options = { host: primary_domain }
   config.action_controller.asset_host = primary_domain
+
+  # To render an HTML page with debugging information, use the value :default.
+  # To render debugging information preserving the response format, use the value :api.
+  # By default, config.debug_exception_response_format is set to :api, when config.api_only is set to true.
+  # But we set it here explicitly so that we can change it if we want and we know that it is on.
+  config.debug_exception_response_format = :api
 end