Documentation Management: Tools, Best Practices, and Your Development Journey
Itsavirus Team
Updated on Apr 05, 2024
How can we leverage documentation tools and best practices to enhance the software development journey for both current and future developers?
Introduction
Documentation refers to the act of storing, organizing, and presenting information in a systematic and structured manner. It could be delivered through visual or written and are made to explain, describe, or instruct about a certain product, system, or processes.
Background
Documentation plays a vital role on a software developing journey, as this reservoir of information will impact the developer’s experience when creating the application later. Making proper documentation could speed up the process of transferring knowledge as there is a lot of examples and information to work with for the future developer.
Tools and Software
Insomnia is a handy tool for API testing, supporting simple API requests, environment variables, request chaining and powerful plugins like random fake test data generation.
Insomnia UI
Postman is an application that allows the testing of web APIs. The software was created in 2012 by Abhinav Asthana, Ankit Sobti and Abhijit Kane in Bangalore, India in order to solve the API tests sharing problem.
UI of postman
Swagger is a suite of tools for API developers from SmartBear Software and a former specification upon which the OpenAPI Specification is based.
UI of Swagger
SoapUI is an open-source web service testing application for Simple Object Access Protocol and representational state transfers. Its functionality covers web service inspection, invoking, development, simulation and mocking, functional testing, load and compliance testing.
SoapUI
All about Postman
What is Postman?
Postman is an API platform for building and using APIs.
Who is supposed to use Postman?
Developers, testers, and API engineers for testing and collaboration.
Why Postman?
Postman facilitates API testing, automation, collaboration, and documentation.
When to use Postman?
Use Postman in software development, API testing, and collaboration environments.
Best Practices
Organize Your Collections: Keep your collections well-organized. Use folders to group related endpoints. This makes it easier for users to navigate through your documentation.
Use Descriptive Names: Give meaningful names to your endpoints, folders, and collections. This helps users quickly understand what each endpoint does.
Add Descriptions: Use the description field to provide additional context for each endpoint, parameter, or header. Explain what the endpoint does, what each parameter means, and any other relevant details.
Include Examples: Provide example requests and responses for each endpoint. This helps users understand how to use the API and what to expect in return.
Use Environments: If your API has different environments (e.g., development, staging, production), use Postman environments to manage environment-specific variables. This allows users to easily switch between environments when testing your API.
Document Authentication: If your API requires authentication, clearly document the authentication mechanism (e.g., OAuth, API key) and provide instructions on how to authenticate requests.
Include Error Handling: Document possible error responses and provide guidance on how to handle them. Include error codes, descriptions, and possible solutions.
Versioning: If your API has multiple versions, clearly indicate the version number for each endpoint. This helps users understand which version of the API they are using and ensures backward compatibility.
Update Documentation Regularly: APIs can evolve over time, so it's important to keep your documentation up to date. Whenever you make changes to your API, make sure to update the documentation accordingly.
Provide Contact Information: Include contact information (e.g., email address, support forum) in your documentation so users can reach out if they have questions or encounter issues.
Use Markdown: Postman allows you to use Markdown in descriptions, which can help format your documentation and make it more readable. Take advantage of Markdown to add headings, lists, code snippets, and other formatting elements.
Share Documentation: Once your documentation is complete, share it with your users. You can generate a public link to your documentation or publish it to the Postman API Network for broader visibility.
