HarperDB Uses Postman Pro as an IDE for Their Product
HarperDB is a database company focused on Internet of Things (IoT), app development, and hybrid transaction/analytical processing (HTAP). Their vision is to build the easiest databases in the world for any developer to make and maintain on their own.
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, HarperDB is a single model database that handles structured or unstructured data, and makes it easy for developers of virtually any skill level to set up and deploy on their own. The technology is exposed via microservices or a REST API, and as such, the team relies on Postman to demonstrate their technology. The team uses Postman as an integrated development environment (IDE) for their product.
Up-to-date API documentation generated by Postman
The HarperDB REST API is well-documented, and can be imported into the Postman app in 2 clicks. To create the API documentation, the team uses Postman to automatically generate a web-viewable version of their Postman collection. Every change to this Postman collection is automatically reflected in the web version so users can reference the most up-to-date version.
In addition to comprehensive documentation for every endpoint, the team created a quickstart guide to introduce new developers to their endpoints. It walks through examples of authorization, creating a schema, setting up tables, and submitting common queries.
The quickstart serves double duty since it also demonstrates HarperDB to potential clients. Once a new user has validated the functionality in Postman, they can generate a code snippet of the endpoint in their preferred development language to use in their own app.
Postman tests for unit and integration testing
The development team is also responsible for unit tests and continuous integration testing. Every developer writes assertions and tests in Postman to ensure the endpoints continue working as expected when the product is updated.
When releasing new features, their developers must run the Postman tests before they are allowed to submit a pull request. The team also set up their continuous integration tool to run the full Postman test suite prior to every new build.
Monitoring uptime with Postman
In addition to testing their core product, the HarperDB team maintains multiple Postman collections to test every one of their public-facing websites, like their homepage, support portal, and API documentation (also hosted by Postman).
Every 15 minutes, a Postman monitor runs those tests to ensure the sites are up and functioning as intended. If any test fails, the Postman integration to Slack will alert the team right away.
We use Postman instead of building our own user interface.
If someone wants to try something out, to visualize their queries or operations, we always recommend Postman because it’s so easy and straightforward to use.
Stephen Goldberg, Chief Executive Officer
