How to Use Postman’s API Builder to Streamline API Development

Last year in the Postman v7.1 release, we introduced a new feature called API Builder that enabled users to improve API development by designing and developing their APIs directly in Postman.

This was a very significant shift for Postman: While API development information in Postman has historically been organized around the constructs of requests, collections, and workspaces, the new API Builder feature puts the API schema at the center of the API development process.

This shift within the Postman platform is enabling developers to streamline and speed up the API creation process.

Let’s take a look at five ways you can use API Builder to optimize API development and build better APIs:

1. Create, edit, and import API schemas directly in Postman

API Builder allows you to create and edit your API schemas directly in the Postman app, which now supports major API schema standards like OpenAPI, GraphQL, WADL, and RAML.

• Create and edit API schemas in the API Builder interface, or import existing schemas

• You can embrace API schema standards and make your API schema the central source of truth for API development

2. Generate API elements from your API schema

API Builder allows you to automatically generate your API elements from your API schema instead of having to manually create the elements.

• Use your API schemas as the central source of truth to automatically generate mocks, docs, tests, and monitors

• Auto-generating API elements will speed up your API development and ensure that API elements are in sync with your schemas

3. Organize your API elements around the context of the API schema

API Builder allows you to organize your API elements around the API schema.

• Within the API Builder tab, there are four additional sub-tabs (Define, Develop, Test, Monitor) that allow you to manage the end-to-end API development process in one place

• Organize your APIs within workspaces, and have a single place to access the API elements for a specific API

4. Sync your API schema bi-directionally with GitHub

API Builder allows you to easily set up bi-directional sync between your API schema in Postman and your GitHub repositories.

• Edit your API schema in Postman and have it automatically sync with GitHub and vice versa

• Syncing your API schemas in Postman with your GitHub repository allows application developers in GitHub to easily access the latest API version

5. Version your APIs and API elements

API Builder allows you to version your APIs and your API elements so that they’re easier to manage.

• Easily add new versions of your API, track multiple API versions, and add version tags to your API elements

• Adding version control to your API development process speeds up API development and helps you manage API governance

The latest improvements in API Builder

We are continually adding new features to API Builder based on the feedback we receive from our user community. Here are a few of the latest API Builder features:

• Request/Response Validation: Now you can validate requests sent in Postman against your OpenAPI3 schema. This enables you to find issues quickly if your API is not working as expected.

• Updating API elements from schema: When your API is updated, you can now update your collections and other elements based on the new schema. This means your team can keep their API tests, documentation, mock servers, and monitors up to date.

Overall benefits of using the Postman platform for API development

The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a global research firm, recently conducted a survey with Postman customers to better understand the benefits of using Postman’s comprehensive platform. The ESG report found that developing APIs within Postman consistently resulted in faster API development, increased API collaboration, and increased API reliability and compliance.

Benefits of using Postman as your API development platform

Announcing unlimited API creation on Postman

When you’re developing hundreds or even thousands of APIs—as is the case at many companies using Postman today—how can you effectively develop APIs at this scale?

Well, we’re excited to announce that we are now giving users on our Team, Business, and Enterprise plans unlimited API creation within Postman, as well as unlimited schema syncs with Github. This means that you and your team can bring all of your API development projects into Postman and use it as your central platform for API development.

Getting started with Postman’s API Builder

We have a few resources to help you get started with API Builder to build your first API:

• Download Postman
• Read API Builder documentation
• Attend API Builder webinar