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Setting up Postman

In addition to using the UI, you can use Postman to hit the Admin, Customer, and Office APIs. They require a slightly different setup process from other uses of Postman on the Milmove project (see: mTLS setup).

In order to set up Postman, you need to have Postman, local server, and local client running.

make server_run

make office_client_run

IMPORTANT: devlocal vs STG / EXP​

The example on this page is written for devlocal. If you want to hit STG or EXP, you must use https:// in your base path. If you don't, you will get strange behavior, zero helpful error messages, and a headache.

Remember:

  • Use https:// in your {{baseUrl}} on STG/EXP
  • Use http:// in your {{baseUrl}} on LOCAL

Office vs Admin vs Customer APIs​

The steps in this doc apply to any API. The only differences are:

  • Base path
    • http://milmovelocal:3000/internal/ - Customer Local
    • https://my.stg.move.mil/internal/ - Customer STG (note the HTTPS)
    • http://officelocal:3000/ghc/v1/ - Office Local
    • https://office.stg.move.mil/ghc/v1/ - Office STG (note the HTTPS)
    • http://adminlocal:3000/admin/v1/ - Admin Local
    • https://admin.stg.move.mil/admin/v1/ - Admin STG (note the HTTPS)
  • Cookies/Session Token
    • For the Internal/Customer endpoints, make sure to log in to the Customer app and use the mil_session_token.
      - For the GHC/Office endpoints, make sure to log in to the Office app and use the `office_session_token`.
    • For the Admin endpoints, make sure to log in to the Admin app and use the admin_session_token.
  • Collection Files
    • internal.yaml - customer
    • ghc.yaml - office
    • prime.yaml - prime
    • admin.yaml - admin
    • support.yaml - non-production API that is designed to help the Prime with testing

Importing a Collection​

The steps below are walking through adding the GHC collection, but can be applied to any collection that you wish to add.

Adding the GHC collection​

  • Click on the "Collections" tab in the left sidebar.

  • Click the "Import" button next to "My Workspaces" and then click the "Upload Files" button on the modal.

    Screenshot of Postman Collections

  • Navigate to the MilMove project folder on your machine, then locate the "Swagger" folder.

  • Select the ghc.yaml file and click "Open".

    Screenshot of Postman YAML upload

  • Confirm your selection on the modal (default values are fine) and click "Import".

    Screenshot of Postman YAML upload

    You should now see the "GHC API" listed in your collections.

Retrieving the Cookies​

Now here comes the fun part, choose your own adventure! For these APIs, we need to supply Postman with the appropriate session cookies from a logged-in user. You can either create your own environment to hold the cookies, or use a cookie interceptor.

Creating an Environment​

You'll want to make your own environment if:

  • You're having trouble using the cookie interceptor
  • You want a relatively quick setup
  • You want to configure additional variables to use in your API calls

You'll want to use the cookie interceptor if:

  • You're having trouble creating the environment
  • You don't want to have to create a new environment file for each API and have to swap between them
  • You want cookies to be grabbed automatically for you

Specialized Postman Setup​

If you are planning to use Postman for testing the prime and support APIs, you will need to make the following changes to support Mutual TLS.

How to Setup Postman to make Mutual TLS API Calls​