Hitesh Choudhary
5/13/2024
If you're not familiar with Postman, chances are that you are new to development world and that's ok. Postman is a tool for serious developers both for frontend and backend developers. It's not just a tools for testing, it's a tool for development. You can use it to test your APIs, to test your frontend, to test your backend, to debug your code, to deploy your code, and to do everything else you can imagine.
Postman has been updated to version 11 and it's a big update. Postman is now focusing on reducing collaboration friction and making it easier for developers to work together. Although there are many new features, here are my favorite ones:
I will keep it simple. Package Library is a new feature in Postman that allows you to import and use pre-built scripts. Use them in any number of projects and you will never have to write the same code again. It's a great way to save time and make your life easier. You can add existing scripts to your library and then use them in your projects.
You can read more about it here.
While development, stuff do change. I really like how our designers work. They are constantly changing the UI and the UX of our app. They talk within Figma. Now I can do the same thing in Postman. I can add comments to my requests and responses and see them in real time. It's a great way to communicate with your team and make sure everyone is on the same page.
There are some updates in the VSCode extension for Postman. Now you can manage environments from within VSCode. Share them with your team and everyone can use them. Honestly, I prefer to use full Postman app instead of the extension. It's more powerful and you can do more with it. For all serious development, I recommend you to use the full Postman app.
There is also some slack
integration, it's really cool. Our team will be super happy to have this feature. Postman said that they are working on Microsoft Teams integration too but we don't use teams so you track that feature in the future on your own if you want. 🫣
To be honest, It was already there but it is now in the chat style. I was already using it to write my tests and documentation and it was really helpful. Now, it's right at the bottom of my postman app and it does a lot of heavy lifting for me.
I really love it when I can transfer my load to the AI and it can write the documentation for me. Of course, I check it throughly but it really writes in depth and I don't have to write it myself.
I even ask Postbot to visulaize the response in tables and charts. It's really helpful in teaching students how to use APIs.
This is something new in Postman. We all know the frustration of handling API keys and secrets. Postman has a feature called Vault that allows you to store your secrets in a secure way. It's still in beta but it's a great approach to solve years old problem of managing secrets.
Postman vault integrations are available on Postman Enterprise plans with advanced security Administration add-on.
There are many new features in postman but these ones are the few that I really like. I hope you will find them useful too. Now go ahead and start using them.
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