A workspace is your home base in Postman — collections, requests, and variables all belong to one.

1. Open the Postman desktop app. If you don't have it yet, download Postman and sign in — if you're already signed in, you're good to go.
2. Click Workspaces in the top navigation → Create.
3. On the Create your workspace form, in Workspace name enter API Basics - [your name] (e.g. API Basics - Alex).
4. For Who can access, open the dropdown and choose Only you and invited people — Internal is already selected.
5. Leave the template on Blank workspace (already selected), then click Create Workspace.

In this step you'll do two things: create a collection (a folder for related requests) and add your first request to it.

1. Confirm you're in your new workspace (check the name in the top-left).
2. In the left sidebar, click + → Collection.
3. Name it My First Collection and save.

Now add your first request to it:

4. In the left sidebar under My First Collection, click Add request.
5. Name the request Get Hot Coffees so it's easy to find later.
6. Leave the method as GET and paste this URL into the address bar:

https://api.sampleapis.com/coffee/hot

7. Click Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S) — choose My First Collection as the destination if prompted.

An environment is a named set of variables you can reuse across requests and switch between as a group. Here you'll store the API's base URL once so you never have to retype it.

1. In the left sidebar, click Environments.
2. Click + (or Environment) and name it Local.
3. In the variables table, add a variable named baseURL.
4. In the Shared Value column, enter https://api.sampleapis.com. If you don't see a Shared Value column, click the ⋯ menu at the far right of the variables table header, then under Show as column, check Shared Value.
5. Save the environment (Ctrl/Cmd+S).

How the values (and sharing) work: Every environment variable has two values. The Value stays only on your machine and is never uploaded; the Shared Value is synced to the Postman cloud and is visible to teammates and the Postman API. LiftOff validates through the Postman API, which can only read the Shared Value — so baseURL must be set there, not just in Value.

LiftOff tip: Set baseURL in Shared Value, not the local Value column, before you validate — the Postman API only sees shared values.

1. Open the Get Hot Coffees request in My First Collection.
2. Replace the full URL with: {{baseURL}}/coffee/hot. At first {{baseURL}} appears red — that's expected. It means the variable is unresolved because no environment is selected yet.
3. In the environment dropdown (top-right), select Local. {{baseURL}} now turns blue — hover over it to see the value it resolves to (https://api.sampleapis.com).
4. Save the request (Ctrl/Cmd+S).

1. With Get Hot Coffees open and Local still selected, click Send.
2. Expect 200 OK and a JSON array of coffee objects (title, description, etc.).
3. Open Scripts → Post-response and add:

pm.test("Status code is 200", function () {
    pm.response.to.have.status(200);
});

4. Click Send again. In the response pane (the lower half of the request), open the Test Results tab — it sits alongside Body, Cookies, and Headers, and shows a passed/failed count like 1/1. You should see Status code is 200 listed with a green PASSED label.