Postman CLI commands and options overview

The Postman CLI provides a comprehensive set of commands for working with Postman from the command line. These commands are organized by functionality to help you quickly find the tools you need for your specific workflow.

Global options

The following options are available globally across many Postman CLI commands. See each individual command for usage details.

Exit codes

Most Postman CLI commands follow the standard convention of exit code 0 for success and a non-zero code for failure. The following commands have a specific, numbered set of exit codes:

Command categories

The Postman CLI commands are organized into the following categories:

Init

• postman init — Set up an AI-ready API project in a repository.

Basic

• postman --help — Display help information.
• postman --version — Display version information.
• postman update — Update the Postman CLI using your original install method.
• postman feedback — Submit feedback about the Postman CLI.

Authentication

• postman login — Sign in to Postman.
• postman logout — Sign out of Postman.
• postman signup — Sign up for Postman and claim a guest workspace.
• postman whoami — Show the account or guest session the CLI is using.

Workspace

• postman workspace list — List all the Postman workspaces you have access to.
• postman workspace get — Read a single workspace’s metadata.
• postman workspace prepare — Validate and prepare local collections and environments.
• postman workspace lint — Lint the workspace configuration and its elements.
• postman workspace push — Push local changes to Postman workspaces.
• postman workspace diff — Preview local-vs-cloud drift before pushing (read-only).
• postman workspace create — Create a workspace and bind it to a Git repository.
• postman workspace delete — Permanently delete a workspace and everything it holds.
• postman workspace connect-git — Connect a workspace to a Git repository.
• postman workspace disconnect-git — Disconnect a workspace from its Git repository.
• postman workspace pull — Pull a workspace’s elements into your local folder.

Team

• postman team list — List the teams inside your organization.

Collection

• postman collection run — Run collections with extensive options and configurations.
• postman collection migrate — Migrate collections from v2.1 to v3 format.
• postman collection import — Create a collection from a cURL command or HAR file.
• postman collection publish — Publish a cloud collection’s public documentation.
• postman collection lint — Validate a collection against the v3 format schema.
• postman collection new — Create a collection locally or in a workspace.
• postman collection get — Fetch a collection in v3 format.
• postman collection list — List your local project’s or a workspace’s collections.
• postman collection request — Add, read, update, or remove requests in a collection.
• postman collection folder — Add, read, update, or remove folders in a collection.
• postman collection example — Add, read, update, list, or remove examples under a request.
• postman collection generate spec — Generate a specification from a collection.
• postman collection sync spec — Regenerate a specification from its linked collection.

Dependency

• postman dependency add — Add a collection, environment, or mock from another workspace as a dependency.
• postman dependency list — List the workspace dependencies declared in your project.
• postman dependency install — Fetch declared dependencies into your local project, all or one.
• postman dependency update — Refresh declared dependencies to their latest source content.
• postman dependency remove — Remove a workspace dependency and delete its local files.

Environment

• postman environment new — Create an environment locally or in a workspace.
• postman environment list — List the environments in a workspace or a local directory.
• postman environment get — Read an environment and print its variables.
• postman environment var set — Set a variable in an environment.
• postman environment var get — Read a variable’s value from an environment.
• postman environment var unset — Remove a variable from an environment.
• postman environment lint — Validate a local environment file against its schema.

Globals

• postman globals lint — Validate a local global variables file against its schema.

Secret commands

• postman secret create — Create a secret in your team’s Shared Vault.

Request commands

• postman request — Test and debug individual HTTP requests from the command line.

Monitor

• postman monitor create — Create a collection-based monitor.
• postman monitor update — Update a monitor’s schedule, runner, notifications, or run options.
• postman monitor list — List the monitors visible to you.
• postman monitor get — Show a monitor’s configuration.
• postman monitor pause — Pause a monitor.
• postman monitor resume — Resume a paused monitor.
• postman monitor delete — Permanently delete a monitor.
• postman monitor run — Run a monitor and return its results, or trigger a run in a CI/CD pipeline.
• postman monitor jobs list — List a monitor’s recent jobs.
• postman monitor jobs get — Report a job’s state and per-region run outcomes.
• postman monitor runs get — Report the test assertions from a monitor run attempt.
• postman monitor metrics — Show per-request latency and outcome history for a monitor.
• postman runner start — Start private API monitoring runners.
• postman runner list — List your team’s registered self-hosted runners.
• postman runner regions — List the regions and runners valid for a monitor’s --runner.
• postman performance run — Configure and run performance tests.
• postman performance list — List a collection’s past performance runs.

App

• postman app test — Run your application’s existing UI test command, capture the network traffic generated during the run, and validate observed API calls against requests in your collections.

• postman app setup-capture — Set up automatic network capture for your Playwright tests.

• postman app init — Deprecated. Initialize your project as an Application Inventory application.

Flows

• postman flows list — List flows in a workspace.
• postman flows trigger — Trigger deployed flows to run.
• postman flows deploy — Deploy flows to the Postman cloud.
• postman flows run — Run flows locally from your repo.
• postman flows update — Update flow settings.
• postman flows list-runs — View flow run history.
• postman flows get-run — Analyze specific flow runs.

Spec

• postman spec lint — Validate API specifications against governance rules.

  In Postman CLI version 1.39.1 and later, this command also supports the new API governance experience. For more information, see Define and enforce API standards with governance groups in Postman.

• postman spec list — List API specifications in a workspace or a local directory.

• postman spec get — Read a specification’s full definition, including its files.

• postman spec create — Create a specification in a workspace, or scaffold one locally.

• postman spec delete — Delete a specification by ID or local path.

• postman spec file add — Add a file to a multi-file specification.

• postman spec file update — Update a file in a multi-file specification.

• postman spec file rm — Remove a file from a multi-file specification.

• postman spec file get — Read a single file from a multi-file specification.

• postman spec generate collection — Generate a collection from a specification.

• postman spec sync collection — Regenerate a collection from its linked specification.

• postman api lint — Check Postman API Builder specifications (Postman v11 only).

Mock

• postman mock run — Start mock servers from configuration files.
• postman mock generate — Generate a runnable mock from a collection or OpenAPI specification.
• postman mock get — Show a mock’s details and run status.
• postman mock list — List the mocks found under a directory.
• postman mock delete — Permanently remove a mock.
• postman mock push — Upload a mock from your repository to the Postman Cloud.
• postman mock deploy — Deploy a cloud mock to a mock server.
• postman mock log — Browse a deployed mock server’s request and response history.

Dataset

• postman dataset create — Create a new dataset.

• postman dataset source — Manage the data sources configured for a dataset.

• postman dataset list — List datasets in a directory or display summary information for a dataset.

• postman dataset get — Display metadata for a dataset.

• postman dataset query — Run a SQL query against a dataset.

• postman dataset view — Create, manage, and run saved SQL queries.

• postman dataset delete — Delete a dataset.

Search

• postman search — Search for Postman elements across your workspace.

• postman search requests — Search for requests by name, keyword, or URL.

• postman search collections — Search for collections by name or keyword.

• postman search workspaces — Search for workspaces by name or keyword.

• postman search flows — Search for flows by name or keyword.

• postman search mocks — Search for mocks by name or keyword.

• postman search environments — Search for environments by name or keyword.

• postman search specs — Search for API specifications by name or keyword.

• postman search documents — Search for documents by name or keyword.

Simulate

• postman simulate run — Run a simulation using a configuration file.

API publish

• postman api publish — Publish API versions in the Postman API Builder (Postman v11 only).

SDK

• postman sdk init — Create or update the .postman/config.json SDK configuration file.
• postman sdk generate — Generate a client SDK from a collection or API specification.
• postman sdk track — Update the change-tracking manifest for a generated SDK.
• postman sdk list — List SDK build jobs and their statuses.
• postman sdk fetch — Download a generated SDK from a server-side build.
• postman sdk connect github — Connect a Postman entity to a GitHub repository for automated SDK regeneration.
• postman sdk connections list — List GitHub connections for a collection or specification.
• postman sdk connections delete — Delete a GitHub connection by its numeric connection ID.

Describe

• postman describe — Aggregate all the information that a coding agent needs to generate accurate code.

Context Graph

• postman context-graph ask — Ask a natural-language question about your team’s Context Graph.
• postman context-graph status — Check on an ask, without waiting.

Skills

• postman skills status — Report whether a project’s agent skills are up to date.
• postman skills update — Fetch the latest agent skills into a project.

Webhook

• postman webhook create — Create a new webhook in the specified workspace.

• postman webhook list — List all webhooks in the specified workspace.

• postman webhook delete — Delete a webhook.

• postman webhook status — Show details for a webhook, including its title, current status (active or inactive), invoke URL, and creation date.

• postman webhook start — Start a paused or inactive webhook, enabling it to begin receiving events.

• postman webhook pause — Pause an active webhook, stopping it from receiving events.

• postman webhook forward — Forward events received on a webhook from external services (such as Stripe or Slack) to a port on your local server.

• postman webhook requests — List, inspect, and replay the requests a webhook has received.

• postman webhook scripts set — Create or update the script a webhook runs.

Usage analytics

Several Postman CLI commands report usage analytics to Postman by default. To turn this reporting off for a command, pass --report-events=false (or --no-report-events).

The Postman CLI also records a minimal, anonymous usage event for many of its commands, so Postman can measure overall CLI usage. These events contain no personal data, file paths, request URLs, or resource names. They include only anonymous IDs, flags, and counts. They’re separate from the reporting that --report-events controls, so --report-events=false doesn’t turn them off.

Get started

To begin using the Postman CLI, do the following:

1. Install the Postman CLI.
2. Explore the specific command categories that match your workflow.

Each command category page provides detailed options, examples, and use cases to help you integrate the Postman CLI into your development and testing workflows.