Find and test an API from the marketplace

The marketplace lists API collections that organizations and developers have published. Instead of reading documentation and building every request yourself, you fork a ready-made collection: a copy of the publisher's requests lands in your workspace, and you only add your own credentials.

1. Find an API

• Search from the box at the top of the marketplace. It matches the start of words in an API's title, summary, tags and publisher name, so pay finds payments and payouts, and acme orders finds APIs whose text contains both words.
• Browse by category with the chips under the search box (Payments, Healthcare, Maps and so on). The number on each chip is how many APIs it holds.
• Sort the results: Trending ranks what developers starred, forked and viewed in the last 14 days; Most starred and Most forked rank by all-time totals; Newest and Recently updated by date. Hover a sort option to see what it means.

Search results show up to 500 pages. If you see 12000+ results, add a word to narrow them down.

2. Judge a listing before you use it

Open an API to see its overview, every endpoint grouped by folder, and a Track record panel. Things worth checking:

• The verified badge next to an organization's name means it proved it controls its website's domain. An unverified organization says so on the page.
• Stars and forks show how many developers saved or tried it. Views count once per visitor per hour; bots are not counted.
• Updated tells you when the publisher last changed the listing or its collection.
• Documentation, when the publisher has published docs, opens them.

3. Fork it into your workspace

1. Select Fork & run in Swastik Codes. Sign in or create a free account if asked.
2. Choose the workspace for your copy. Only workspaces you can edit are offered; to fork into a team workspace you need the editor role there.
3. Keep or change the name of your copy, then select Fork & open.

Your copy has every request, folder, script and test of the original, but none of the publisher's secrets or current values. If you forked the same API before, the dialog links to your earlier copies so you do not end up with duplicates.

Prefer to decide later? Select Star instead: the API is saved under your starred APIs (account menu › Marketplace, or swastik.codes/profile).

4. Add your credentials and send a request

1. Open the forked collection's Variables (or an environment) and fill in the API key, token or base URL the overview asks for. Set keys to the secret type (masked on screen, never written into exports) or keep them in the vault; the lesson on environments and variables explains both.
2. Pick an endpoint and press Send.
3. When the requests work, run the whole collection with the collection runner and add your own tests.

Troubleshooting

• "You need a cloud workspace you can edit to fork into." Create a workspace from the workspace menu, or ask a team admin for the editor role.
• Every request returns 401 or 403. Your credentials are missing or wrong: check the collection's variables, and the authorization settings described in the API's overview.
• The API page says it is not found. The publisher renamed or removed it, or hid their profile. Your fork keeps working; it is your own copy.

Go deeper

• LessonEnvironments and variables
• LessonCollections, folders and authorization
• LessonPublish your API on the marketplace