I regularly have to pinch myself regarding the different APIs that I get to work with each day at Postman. One of the public API Providers I get to work with on a regular basis is the Stripe team who recently published a public workspace and collection for the Stripe API. Like other API Providers like Salesforce, Twitter, Dolby, Nylas, and others, Stripe is working to figure out exactly what a public workspace in the Postman API network can be used for. My favorite way to remind folks about what should be happening in workspaces is to remind them that they are “workspaces”. Meaning, where work and iteration occurs, but more importantly work and iteration on an API in which public API consumers can see and engage with. So, don’t worry about things not being perfect, and get to work engaging with developers, and learning about what they need.
Stripe is an easy sell on investing in their workspace, as they get what Postman is all about, and like many other top API providers, and their public API developers are asking for a Postman collection. The reference collection for the Stripe API is strong and represents a mature API that is in perpetual forward motion. The collection provides everything you need to on-board and authenticate with the API, as well as a complete list of resources all nicely organized by folders and labeled using plain language. Stripe’s approach provides a nice representation of why Postman collections matter, but the power of a well designed and coherent API. I prefer being able to fork the official Stripe Postman collection over having to maintain my own because I know the level of detail that the Stripe team puts into the process behind keeping their collection up to date, and there is no way I have that much time on my hands.
I see that 126 folks have already forked the Stripe collection, and 83 more are watching it, even with very little storytelling having occurred. I’ll be keeping an eye on the engagement going on within the workspace, and continue helping the team iterate upon their collection, connect it to the OpenAPI for the Stripe API. Along with Twilio, Salesforce, and other public API workspace, it provides a real nice high profile, but relevant example of why Postman public workspaces matter. They aren’t intended to replace the current developer portal experience in place from API Providers, but provides a more interactive layer that can augment and be seamlessly woven into the overall developer experience for both Stripe developers within the Stripe API ecosystem, but also the 15M+ Postman developers who have quick access to Stripe (and others) APIs via the Postman API Network and search.
