API Doc Tool

Modern applications are built around APIs, but testing an API and documenting it are often treated as two separate tasks.

DevScribe’s API Plugin brings both into the same workspace. You can create and test API requests, inspect responses, organize reusable requests, and embed APIs directly into your project documentation.

Instead of maintaining API documentation in one place and testing requests in another, DevScribe lets the API and the documentation live together.

What Is the API Doc Tool?

The API Doc Tool is DevScribe’s workspace for testing, organizing, and documenting APIs.

It provides an API client for working with different types of API and messaging protocols while allowing those requests to become part of your project documentation.

For REST APIs, the request editor supports HTTP methods, URLs, query parameters, headers, authentication, cookies, request bodies, and response inspection.

The API workspace also supports:

• REST
• WebSocket
• Server-Sent Events (SSE)
• Socket.IO
• Webhooks
• MQTT
• Kafka
• Amazon SQS

What Can You Do with the API Doc Tool?

Test REST APIs

Create and execute REST requests using common HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, and OPTIONS.

You can configure query parameters, headers, authentication, cookies, and request bodies directly from the request editor. Supported authentication methods include Basic Authentication, Bearer Token, API Key, and OAuth 2.0.

Work with Request Bodies

APIs frequently require structured request data. DevScribe supports multiple request body formats, including:

• JSON
• Form Data
• URL Encoded
• Raw Text
• XML

The built-in editor provides syntax highlighting for supported formats, making request payloads easier to create and modify.

Inspect API Responses

After executing a request, the Response Viewer brings the response information together in one place.

You can inspect:

• HTTP status
• Response time
• Response headers
• Response body

JSON responses are automatically formatted for readability.

This makes it easier to verify an endpoint, investigate unexpected responses, and iterate on a request while developing.

Import cURL Commands

API requests are often shared as cURL commands.

Instead of manually recreating a request, DevScribe can import a cURL command and extract its method, URL, query parameters, headers, cookies, and request body.

Once imported, the request remains editable, so you can modify it, execute it, and save it as part of your project.

Import Postman Collections

If your APIs are already organized in Postman, DevScribe can import Postman collections so you can continue working with those requests inside the workspace.

This makes it easier to move existing API testing workflows into DevScribe without recreating every request manually.

Document APIs

The API Plugin is not limited to testing.

API files can be embedded directly into DevScribe documents as interactive API documentation. The embedded view can display the endpoint, HTTP method, headers, path parameters, query parameters, request body, response examples, and other API details.

This makes technical documentation more useful because the API information is presented alongside the explanation of the service or feature.

Test Kafka Streams

You can work with Kafka topics and messages as part of your development and testing workflow, making it easier to inspect and test event-driven communication without switching to a separate tool.

Kafka support is particularly useful for applications where services communicate through events rather than traditional request-response APIs.

By keeping Kafka workflows alongside REST APIs, WebSockets, MQTT, and other supported protocols, you can organize different types of communication used by the same application in one project.

This makes the API Doc Tool useful for projects that combine traditional APIs with real-time and event-driven systems, while keeping their testing resources organized alongside the rest of the project documentation.

API Documentation That Stays Connected

One of the most useful parts of the API Doc Tool is the connection between an API and its documentation.

When an API is embedded into a document, you can select Edit to open the request in the full API Plugin. You can modify the request, execute it, inspect the response, and save your changes.

Updates are automatically reflected in the embedded documentation because both views reference the same underlying API file.

This avoids maintaining a separate static copy of an API specification in your documentation.

API Documentation as Part of the Project

APIs rarely exist in isolation.

A service document might need to explain:

• What the service does
• Which endpoints it exposes
• What data it accepts
• What responses it returns
• Which database resources it uses
• How the service fits into the system architecture

DevScribe allows APIs to exist alongside these other project resources.

A single document can contain an architecture diagram, API requests, database queries, JSON payloads, code, and other technical resources.

This turns API documentation from a static reference into part of the development workspace.

Common Use Cases

API Development

Test endpoints while building a backend and immediately inspect their responses.

API Documentation

Document endpoints together with their request parameters, payloads, responses, and surrounding technical context.

Debugging

Send requests with different parameters, headers, authentication settings, or payloads to investigate unexpected API behaviour.

Team Knowledge Bases

Keep reusable API requests and technical documentation together so developers can find the information they need without searching across multiple tools.

Project Onboarding

Give a new developer a single project collection containing API endpoints, documentation, database queries, diagrams, JSON examples, and other development resources.

API Learning and Practice

Create collections of API requests and examples for learning REST APIs, authentication, request formats, and response handling.

Why Use the API Doc Tool?

The biggest advantage is not simply having another API client.

It is having API testing and API documentation in the same workspace.

Instead of this:

Documentation in one tool

API testing in another

Examples somewhere else

DevScribe keeps these resources connected to the same project.

You can write the explanation, test the endpoint, inspect the response, and keep the working request available from the documentation.

Conclusion

The API Doc Tool brings API testing, API documentation, and project context together.

You can test REST APIs, work with real-time and messaging protocols, import existing requests, inspect responses, and organize reusable API resources. Those same APIs can then be embedded directly into your documentation and updated from the full API workspace.

For developers, this means less duplicated documentation and less switching between tools. Your API requests remain close to the documentation, code, database queries, diagrams, and other resources that explain how the system works.