Announcing the New Postman Open Technologies Program

Kin Lane

April 2, 2021· 3 mins

Postman has long had a strong open philosophy. While the Postman API Platform is indeed a commercial operation, we are completely dependent upon and regularly contribute to open source specifications, standards, tooling, and the open data conversation at large. As part of Postman’s evolution, we are dramatically increasing our support for open source API technology with the launch of an exciting new program called Postman Open Technologies.

We’ve recently established a team within Postman dedicated to nurturing what we consider to be the backbone of the API economy: The open source specifications, standards, tooling, and data that allow the global API community to build out its API factory floors—across companies, organizations, institutions, and government agencies.

Postman Open Technologies has been designed to support four distinct areas that we feel are critical to scaling APIs across every business sector in the next decade. These areas are often overlooked when it comes to the fast-paced technology sector, so here’s how we’ll be investing in their growth:

• Specifications: Increasing our involvement with and support for OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, JSON Schema, and other specifications that are defining how we do APIs.
• Standards: Joining the discussion around FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), PSD2 (Payment Services Directive Two), OpenTravel, Open Insurance, and other emerging industry API standards.
• Tooling: Working hard to help map out the landscape of open source tooling that has emerged around APIs while stepping up our investment.
• Data: Helping fuel the discussion around open data and taking a strong stance that APIs are essential to the success of open data efforts.

These four areas are essential to the Postman platform, and they are the cornerstones of the API universe that is expanding rapidly across all industries. We want to be open about our intention to bolster the many parts and people that make up the API community as we strive to position Postman as a leader when it comes to the open source technologies that power API operations. We will measure the success of this program in the following ways:

• Public Workspaces: The creation and evolution of useful public workspaces that help the public better understand and use open technology in their own work.
• APIs: The defining of OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, and JSON Schema that reflects the entire API economy, providing machine-readable artifacts for the community.
• Postman Collections: The creation and evolution of reference, workflow, lifecycle, and other types of Postman Collections that can be used to power operations.
• Articles: The publishing of relevant and informative short-form content that can be published throughout the community to help drive the API conversation.
• White Papers: The delivery of long-form content that can help introduce people to the world of open API technology but also guide them through it.
• Videos: The production of an ongoing stream of video interviews, discussions, tutorials, and other formats that help people make sense of open technologies.

The Postman Open Technologies journey took root as part of our open philosophy and the development of Newman and our other open source tooling, but it was a mission that really started picking up speed when we joined the OpenAPI Initiative (OAI) last year and then partnered with the AsyncAPI team and JSON Schema leadership. These API specifications are the cornerstones of the API lifecycle in 2021, but we also realize that the industries who are putting these specifications to work, as well as the tooling makers who are building on top of these specs, all need more investment, communication, collaboration, and coordination. This has resulted in us formalizing a vision for what is now Postman Open Technologies.

We invite you to join us in this new endeavor via the Postman Open Technologies official public workspace, where you can find project workspaces we are creating and evolving to support this pursuit. We look forward to working with you to help advance the conversation around how we utilize open technologies across not just the API space—but the entire technology sector.