February 2020 Summaries

Postman's latest feature, GitHub Sync, enhances the API development lifecycle by allowing seamless integration of OpenAPI, Swagger, and RAML definitions into existing workflows. By using the API builder in Postman's APIs tab, users can sync changes between Postman and GitHub, facilitating collaboration and streamlining processes. The integration requires creating a GitHub personal access token and setting up a webhook in the GitHub repository to enable real-time syncing of API schema. Users can sync multiple API versions to a GitHub repository, promoting collaboration among distributed teams using Postman. Feedback is encouraged to improve the tool, which is now generally available in the Postman application.

APIs have become a fundamental component of the digital economy, driving a rapid increase in their adoption and utilization across various sectors. This surge is evidenced by the Postman API Platform, which has seen an explosive growth in Postman Collections from under half a million in 2016 to over 46 million by January 2021. Three major industry shifts have fueled this growth: a transition from single-device to multi-device experiences, the architectural move from monoliths to microservices, and the shift from on-premise to cloud infrastructure, all of which rely heavily on APIs. The increasing demand for APIs is reflected in the staggering number of API requests, with Postman recording approximately 4.7 billion requests in 2019 alone. As the internet continues to expand, so too does the world of APIs, which are now integral to nearly all business sectors, suggesting ongoing growth well into the future.

The Postman Console is a powerful tool designed to enhance the debugging process for API network calls and Postman Collections, providing detailed insights into HTTP requests and responses. Accessible via a simple keyboard shortcut or through the application's menu, the console logs every network call made, displaying them in both raw and formatted forms, and allows users to inspect headers, certificates, and other elements. It supports logging messages similarly to JavaScript's console.log() function, offering real-time visibility of network activity, errors, and exceptions. Recent enhancements include improved information on network calls, support for new message types, configurable display settings, and the ability to handle larger request and response bodies. These features make the console an invaluable resource for identifying and resolving issues efficiently, limited only by the capacity to store the last 5,000 logs and 24 hours of history. A brief instructional video is available to help users maximize the console's potential and improve their debugging efficiency in Postman.

The Postman Interceptor is a Chrome browser plug-in that enhances the ability of web professionals to understand and control web API interactions by capturing and analyzing web traffic. It allows users to reverse engineer existing APIs by recording the technical details of web API usage, enabling them to save and manipulate requests and responses within the Postman environment. A notable feature is its ability to sync cookies between browsers and Postman, improving visibility into authentication and routing. The tool acts as a "View Source" for the API age, offering insights into the inner workings of desktop, web, and mobile applications without requiring coding expertise. By migrating from the deprecated Chrome application to the more robust desktop edition, users gain access to advanced features and better orchestration of API interactions, while also benefiting from Postman's cloud platform capabilities. This empowers both developers and curious users to gain a deeper understanding and control over digital transactions and the cloud-based applications they interact with daily.

Postman is a powerful tool for front-end developers to explore and interact with APIs, offering a hidden feature that allows users to generate code snippets for various languages and frameworks directly from their API calls. This feature not only saves time by eliminating the need for manual coding but also offers customization options for tailoring snippets to specific project requirements, such as linting standards and line-continuation characters. Users can enable the New Code Generation Mode in the Postman app to access additional settings for further customization. Moreover, Postman extends this functionality to web API documentation, enabling developers to generate and customize code snippets directly from the documentation. Organizations like BigCommerce and Intuit utilize Postman’s code generation capabilities to facilitate developer onboarding by providing ready-to-use code, thus accelerating the integration process for external and new team members. The open-source nature of Postman allows users to contribute additional features or languages via GitHub, and recent improvements include expanded language support and enhanced customization settings.