Tools
The following tools and resources help you develop integrations using channels.
OpenAPI spec
You can view the Channel API spec file on GitHub.
Some of the benefits of using the OpenAPI spec include:
- Inspecting the API.
- Using a code generator to generate stub code for the API in the programming language of your choice.
- Building mock servers.
Application Channel Template Code
You can speed up your development of an application channel by using the project in the front-channel-template GitHub repository. The code is accompanied by the Getting Started with Application Channels tutorial.
Postman collection for Application Channels
Postman is an HTTP client for testing web services. Postman makes it easy to test APIs by allowing users to quickly put together both simple and complex HTTP requests. If you are not familiar with Postman, refer to their online documentation and tutorials.
To expedite development, Front provides the Channel API Postman collection for Application Channels in our Postman public workspace.
- Click the button above to view the collection available in our public workspace.
- Click Fork to fork the collection to your workspace and begin testing our API.
- After you fork the collection, click the top-level Channel API collection in Postman. You should see the Authorization tab appear.
- In the Authorization tab, set the Type to Bearer Token.
- In the Authorization tab, set the Token to
{{generatedToken}}. This token is generated by the Postman script included in the Pre-request Script tab. - Create a new environment in Postman.
- Add the following global variables to the environment. Refer to Creating an Application Channel to learn how to obtain the values for the variables.
| Variable name | Value |
|---|---|
channelId | Your channel ID |
channelTypeId | The App UID from your app's Basic information page |
secretKey | The App secret from your app's Basic information page |
baseUrl | https://api2.frontapp.com |
webhookUrl | Your webhook URL for listening for and responding to Front requests |
- Save the environment and then return to the Channel API Postman collection.
- Select the environment you created from the Environments dropdown menu. With your authentication details specified and the environment variables defined, you should now be able to test the requests in the Channel API collection.
The Postman collection automatically updates when we make changes to the Channel API.
When we make updates to our API, Postman notifies you and allows you to pull the changes from the Postman collection into your fork.
If you don't receive a notification, you can select the Pull changes option within your forked collection to pull the latest updates manually.
Postman collection for Custom Channels
Custom Channels use the Receive Custom Messages API endpoint in the Core API. Refer to the Core API Tools page to access a Core API Postman collection.
Updated 8 months ago