CoursesWidgets - REST APIModule 1: Overview

Lab - Getting Started

Plan: Stencil Developer

 Lesson 3 of 22 · 30 min

Getting Started

In this lab you will

  • Install Postman
  • Create an OAuth token from your sandbox store’s control panel
  • Create a preset for request headers
  • Create an environment in Postman for your sandbox store

Prerequisites

  • BigCommerce store (sandbox or live)
  • Basic knowledge of APIs
  • REST client (Postman)
  • Active BigCommerce store with user permission to edit Template Files

Getting Started with Postman

Postman

  1. Navigate to postman.com
  2. Click “Sign Up for Free” in the top right corner
  3. Fill out the form provided
  4. Click Create Free Account

Create an OAuth Token

Create an OAuth token from your sandbox store’s control panel

  1. Login to your sandbox store

Make sure you are logging in using the user account with Store Owner permissions. For more information, see the Store API Accounts article in the support portal.

  1. Navigate to Settings > API > Store-level API accounts
  2. Click the Create API Account button
  3. Select “V2/V3 API token” as the Token Type
  4. Type a name for the API account
  5. Copy the store hash from the API path

The store hash is the alphanumeric string in the API path between /stores/ and /v3/. This string uniquely identifies this store when sending requests to https://api.bigcommerce.com/

Example:
API Path: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/abcd1234/v3/
Store Hash: abcd1234

The store hash can also be found in your Control Panel URL.

Example:
Control Panel URL: https://store-abcd1234.mybigcommerce.com/
Store Hash: abcd1234

  1. Save the store hash somewhere that you can access to complete later steps in this lab activity
  2. Under the OAuth scopes, set the Products scope to Modify
  3. Click the Save button
  4. Copy the API credentials, then store them in a place you can access later

API credentials

A .txt file containing the same credentials will (on most browsers) automatically download to your computer.

There is no way to re-display this pop-up after you select Done to dismiss it. So make sure you store your credentials – either by copying/pasting the contents of each field out of the pop-up, or by keeping the downloaded .txt file. Otherwise, you will need to repeat all the above steps to generate new credentials.

From a security perspective, these credentials are sensitive – please treat them with the same caution that you would treat a private key or root password.

Create a Postman Environment

“What are environments?

While working with APIs, you will often need to have different setups. For example, your local machine, the development server, or the production API. Environments give you the ability to customize requests using variables. This way you can easily switch between different setups without changing your requests. You won’t have to worry about remembering all those values once they are in Postman. Environments can be downloaded and saved as JSON files and uploaded later.”

Source: Managing Environments

  1. If it is not already open, open Postman
  2. In the Workspace menu on the left side of the page, click the Environments tab

Postman environment

  1. Click the + button to create a new environment
  2. Type a name, such as “My Sandbox Store” into the Environment Name field
  3. Create the following variables:

Environment Variables

VariableTypeInitial ValueCurrent Value
store_hashDefaultPaste your store hashPaste your store hash
v3_tokenDefaultPaste your Access Token copied from API account creationPaste your Access Token copied from API account creation
  1. Click Save
  2. Before you make a call, you must Assign the new environment. Above the Save button, Click the drop down arrow next to “No Environment”. Select your new environment to assign.

Create a Preset for Request Headers

Saving your request header information in a preset will allow you to quickly populate your request headers rather than having to re-enter this information.

  1. Open Postman
  2. Navigate to your workspace
  3. Click + to open a new tab
  4. Click on the Headers tab
  5. Click on Presets
  6. Click Manage Presets
  7. Click Add
  8. Add the following presets

Postman Presets

HeaderValue
Acceptapplication/json
Content-Typeapplication/json
X-Auth-Token{{v3_token}}
  1. Click Add to save

Import the Postman Widgets Collection

  1. Click the ‘Import’ option in the top menu in Postman
  2. Download the JSON file below: (right-click on the file below and select “save link as”)

Download Postman Collection

  1. Click ‘Import’ in the import modal
  2. Drag & Drop the downloaded JSON file

Import Postman collection