APIs are essential when it comes to software development. It allows software to communicate with each other to exchange information. In the beginning, when learning to make API calls, it can be a challenge using tools such as cURL in the terminal, in the frontend or backend option such as . Postman is a great tool for understanding the process of making API calls and getting feedback on the response of those calls. It provides a visual interface and allows developers to get a sense of the workflow which can provide easier transitions to using other tools such as cURL or Express. FETCH Express In this tutorial, we will be using to make API requests to to get a better understanding on building an application similar to Twitch or YouTube. The Livepeer Video Services API consists of the standard features for users such as creating new live streams, recording the streams and getting a list of their streams. By leveraging for transcoding, it will be easier and cost effective to scale for in the future. Postman Livepeer Video Services Livepeer’s decentralized network Get access to Postman Step 1: Go to and sign up for a free account. Postman’s website You can use their web browser tool or download the desktop version. For this tutorial, we will use the desktop version with , but it is also available for and . Mac OS Windows Linux Get access to Livepeer Video Services Step 2: Go to and sign up for a free account. Livepeer Video Services Now that we have access to these two services, let’s start interacting with them. Get anAPI key Step 3: In your Livepeer dashboard, tap the developers tab and select API keys Click the button that says Create Key Then give your key a name and click Create With the API key, we will start going through the section of Livepeer Video Services' . The reference uses the cURL command but we will do this using Postman instead. Stream API Reference To learn more about streaming Livepeer Video Services with the cURL command, visit the tutorial How To Stream With Livepeer Video Service’s RTMP API Step 4: Launch the Postman desktop app Click the icon under the Reports tab to start a new request or select under the file menu + New Tab Create a stream Step 5: Select the option and the paste in Livepeer Video Services’ base URL for streaming POST https://livepeer.com/api/stream Then underneath the URL, click on the tab, and select as the type Authorization Bearer Token Copy and paste your API key from Livepeer Video Services Now select the tab and then underneath select the radio button Body raw Then click the the drop down menu and select the option Text JSON In the text box field below, paste the following code which is from the . You can change the to whatever you want as this is for the name of your stream Livepeer Video Services' API reference docs name { "name": "First Stream", "profiles": [ { "name": "720p", "bitrate": 2000000, "fps": 30, "width": 1280, "height": 720 }, { "name": "480p", "bitrate": 1000000, "fps": 30, "width": 854, "height": 480 }, { "name": "360p", "bitrate": 500000, "fps": 30, "width": 640, "height": 360 } ] } Now click on the button and you should receive a confirmation that it went through with a 201 status Send Scroll down in the response and copy the for the stream that was just created. It should be under id renditions Check the Livepeer Video Services’ dashboard and the stream that you just created should come up Now let’s get the stream we just created Retrieve a stream Step 6: In the Postman app, we will change from to , and in the URL paste in and replace with the id we copied from our response earlier. POST GET https://livepeer.com/api/stream/{id} {id} Click the blue send button and you should get back a 200 status with the response including the parameters of the stream Get a list of streams Step 7: In order to get a list of streams, follow to create a second stream so that there is more than one stream Step 5 Give it a name of your choice, but for this example, it will be named Second Stream Go back to Livepeer Video Services’ dashboard and you should see the appear Second Stream Now that we have multiple streams, go back to the Postman app and retrieve them Similar to we are changing to and insert the base URL for retrieving multiple streams Step 6 POST GET https://livepeer.com/api/stream?streamsonly=1 Remember that the body should have the selected since we are not passing in any data none radio button Click the blue send button and it should confirm with a response of status meaning that the request went through and a response back with a list of your streams 200 Toggling a stream Step 8: Replace with and insert the URL for for toggling recording and replace with the one you have at the end of GET Patch https://livepeer.com/api/stream/{id}/record {id} Step 5 Now we will toggle the recording on by putting the following in body, just as we did in Step 5 { “record”: true } Click the blue send button and it should confirm with a response of status meaning that the request went through 204 Update a stream Step 9: Select and insert the URL for updating a stream and replace with the one you have at the end of Patch https://livepeer.com/api/stream/{id} {id} Step 5 Now we will not have the recording on and suspend the stream by putting the following in body, just as we did in Step 5 { “record”: false, “suspend”: true } Click the blue send button and it should confirm with a response of status meaning that the request went through 204 Delete a stream Step 10: We will delete by replacing with and insert the URL for deleting a stream and replace the you have at the end of Second Stream Patch Delete https://livepeer.com/api/stream/{id} {id} Step 5 Click the blue send button and you should get a status as a response to confirm the stream has been deleted 204 Go back to Livepeer Video Services' dashboard to confirm that the stream has been deleted Now that you are able to use Postman to interact with Livepeer Video Services' API, take your skills to another level using cURL. To learn more, check out the tutorial How to Stream With Livepeer Video Service’s RTMP API. How to Stream with RTMP API First Published here

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