Newbie question -- how do I begin working with REST Api?

[Gail]

I'm on Jira and Confluence cloud, and I don't want to create anything -- just query what limited data may be available to help with admin tasks.

I have no idea what app (add-on or something like Mac terminal) I would use to access the API.  

Thanks

[Dirk Ronsmans · Accepted solution]

Hey @Gail ,

There are several tools out there that can query the api for you in a user friendly way. (things like Postman for example)

I've always had fun with a simple browser extension, e.g. on Chrome you can use Yet Another Rest Client to easily do some simple queries.

But this will take some experimenting on your end. With these tools you won't need to write code to connect but still need to define your payload to send towards the api endpoints.

[Gail]

Thanks so much for the quick response.    Have a great day!!

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Also don't forget to read thru the documentation (which is extensive)

https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/intro/

[Craig Nodwell]

Hi @Gail welcome to the community.
Here's some resources you can start with:
YouTube Tutorial 

Rest API Documentation

Atlassian Developer Rest Introduction