# Forking a Collection to Build Faster API Demos in Postman Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-q55n129h8 Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/r-q55n129h8 Generated: 2025-12-16T22:03:13.848+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview The video demonstrates how to fork a public Postman API collection, specifically the Yelp Openings API, into a new private workspace using Postman's API Network and Agent Mode to rapidly build and iterate on API demo projects, allowing developers to customize and experiment without affecting the original collection. **Key Points:** - The primary goal is to fork the public Yelp Openings API collection from the Postman API Network into a new private workspace called "Notion Demo Project Template". - The participants establish a new internal Postman workspace to house the forked collection, inviting each other as administrators for collaboration. - The Yelp Openings API collection, which contains 1 request, is forked by selecting 'Fork Collection' from the collection menu. - The forked collection is named "Pooja Mistry's fork" and is placed into the newly created workspace. - The discussion highlights using Postman's Agent Mode (AI) to guide the process of setting up a Yelp Fusion Environment by creating an environment file containing necessary variables like yelp_base_url and yelp_api_key. - The process successfully populates the environment variables in the new Yelp Fusion Env, ready for use with the forked collection, demonstrating how Agent Mode streamlines setup. ![Screenshot at 00:00: The video opens with hosts Pooja Mistry \(Sr. Developer Advocate, Postman\) and Quinton Wall \(Head of Dev. Relations, Postman\) introducing the topic: "Dev to Dev: Forking a Collection," overlaid on a Postman application screenshot showing the Yelp API Collection Creation interface.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-00-00.png) **Context:** The video features Pooja Mistry and Quinton Wall from Postman demonstrating a workflow for accelerating the creation of API demo projects. They focus on taking an existing, publicly available API collection from the Postman API Network (in this case, the Yelp Openings API) and forking it into a dedicated, private workspace for team experimentation and customization, utilizing Postman's AI Agent Mode to assist with environment setup. ## Detailed Analysis The session begins with Pooja and Quinton planning to build demo projects using various APIs, deciding to focus on the Yelp API for this demonstration. They navigate to the Postman API Network, search for and locate the public Notion API collection (though they quickly pivot to Yelp), and then search for the Yelp API documentation. After finding the Yelp Developer Portal, they identify the Yelp Reservations API as a target, but ultimately settle on the Yelp Openings API documentation. They then switch back to Postman, locate the public Yelp Openings API collection in the API Network, and fork it into a private workspace named "Notion Demo Project Template," which they created as an internal workspace and invited each other to as admins. After forking, they switch to Postman's Agent Mode in the new empty workspace and prompt the AI to create a Yelp Fusion Environment based on the Yelp API docs, which the AI successfully generates, populating it with necessary variables like yelp_base_url and yelp_api_key. This demonstrates how Agent Mode can significantly speed up the initial setup required to start experimenting with a forked collection. ### Introduction & Goal Setting - Brainstorming demo apps using public APIs like Notion and Yelp - Decided to focus on Yelp API to showcase forking and Agent Mode capabilities. ### Finding and Forking the Collection - Navigated Postman API Network to find the Yelp Openings API collection - Forked the public collection into a new private workspace named "Notion Demo Project Template" after creating it. ### Workspace Setup and Collaboration - Created the new workspace as 'Internal' and invited Quinton as an admin to facilitate collaborative development on the forked collection. ### Leveraging Agent Mode for Environment Setup - Used Agent Mode within the empty forked workspace to prompt the creation of a "Yelp Fusion Env" environment, specifying the Yelp API documentation URL as context. ### Environment Population and Variable Usage - Agent Mode successfully created the environment and populated it with variables such as yelp_base_url and yelp_api_key, which are then substituted into the parameters of the Yelp Search Open Businesses request, demonstrating a fast path to authenticated testing. ![Screenshot at 00:04: The initial screen showing the two presenters, Quinton Wall and Pooja Mistry, with the title card "Dev to Dev: Forking a Collection" over a Postman interface.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-00-04.png) ![Screenshot at 00:25: Pooja Mistry is shown interacting with the Postman home screen, which features the 'Postman DevRel' profile and a prompt asking how the user would like to use Postman today.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-00-25.png) ![Screenshot at 01:04: The view shifts to the Postman API Network, showing the public Notion API workspace overview, which has over 50k+ profile views.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-01-04.png) ![Screenshot at 01:31: The Notion API collection is expanded in the left sidebar, showing various folders like Users, Databases, Pages, and Blocks, while the main panel displays documentation for the Users endpoints.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-01-31.png) ![Screenshot at 03:11: The 'Fork collection' dialogue box appears, allowing the user to specify a label for the fork \("Pooja Mistry's fork"\) and select the destination workspace \("Notion AI Agent"\).](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/r-q55n129h8/00-03-11.png)