Collections are a machine readable and execuable store for authentication, documentation, folders, scripts, and a single or many API calls organized into a meaningful business workflow. Collections can be hand-crafted or reverse engineered from existing web and mobile applications via Chrome Interceptor or proxy. Collections help make API requests, workflows, capabilities, and experiences something tangible that you can share with your team, consumers, or anyone else you need. Collections can be paired with environments and executed manually using runners, scheduled in different regions via the cloud, and baked into our CI/CD pipelines.
OpenAPI and AsyncAPI provide the contract for what is possible with an API, but collecitons provide a derivative of that contract expr3essed for a specific stop along the API lifecycle. Collections can be generated or developed for mock servers, documentation, tests, and other automation. Collections are used to map out useful businesss processes and provide the machine readable artifact that can be used to automate and orchestrate business activities across business or technical stkeholders. I have been working at Postman for 3 years as of writing this and I still don’t fully understand what is possible with collections - still exploring.
