This document guides developers through setting up an interactive development environment for exploring REST APIs using Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Jupyter Notebooks, and a pyenv managed Python environment. The guide provides high-level instructions for installing and configuring the software emphasizing the advantages of this approach for interactive exploratory data analysis and seamless code transfer to production applications. The setup demonstrated in this guide provides the developer with a foundation for completing advanced REST API tutorials and offers a more flexible alternative to traditional API testing tools like Postman or Swagger.
Keywords: Jupyter Notebooks, Python, Visual Studio Code, API, Development Environment
Microsoft Visual Studio Code is a precompiled desktop application that is available on a variety of operating systems and is a ready-to-use IDE. A copy can be acquired for free by following the steps outlined below.
- Visit https://code.visualstudio.com/
- Download the version of Visual Studio Code for your operating system
- Follow any additional "setup" instructions required for your version
While Visual Studio Code is highly customizable, no special customization is required to follow along with any of my REST API playground tutorials.
Jupyter, Jupyter Labs, or Jupyter Notebooks is an interactive coding environment that lets you run isolated blocks of code. It is widely used in the data analytics and data science communitites. Since a lot of the work I perform is with REST APIs and intergrations, Jupyter is great for exploratory data analysis and is the perfect tool for running, rerunning, and fine tuning REST API calls and exploring the data you receive from the calls.
A copy of Jupyter can be acquired for free from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace by either visiting the Marketplace in a browser or via the "Extensions"
- Visit the Visual Studio Code Marketplace and search for Jupyter
- Click the green install button (browser market place) or the blue install button (in-app "Extensions" tab)
- Follow on-screen instructions to complete the installation
- Visit https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv
- Find the "Installation" section in the README. Note: The installation instructions are broken up into sections A. through E., make sure you follow all steps to create a working Python environment.
- Find Installation Step A. Locate the "Details" for your operating system and follow the instructions
- Continue following Step B. through Step E. of the Installation section
pyenv install 3.13.2
Once you've installed Visual Studio Code, Jupyter, and Python as an isolated environment, you'll be able to begin following along with any of my Jupyter Notebook tutorials.
- The first time you execute a Jupyter Notebook code block, you'll be presented with a small diaglog at the top of your Visual Studio Code window to "Select an environment". You'll want to select "Python Environments..."
- Next, you'll be presented with a list of available Python environments, you want to use the environment you installed in the above "
pyenv" step, so select one of the options under the "PyEnv Env" heading. Pay attention to the path you're selecting, the light gray text should contain a path with a~/.pyenvprefix.
A variety of other options exist for testing REST API calls and some even generate helpful code in a variety of languages. I prefer the Jupyter environment because it allows me to write and test code that I can transfer into an application, pipeline, or other project easily. The following options are great if your just interested in designing, documenting, and exploring a REST API.
- Swagger (open source)
- Postman or Insomnia (commerical API platforms)
- RapidAPI (standalone desktop application)
Now you should be ready to proceed with any of my REST API Playground tutorials, such as "Harnessing the Power of Mainframe REST APIS for Modernization".
- Download Visual Studio Code - Mac, Linux, Windows. (2021, November 3). https://code.visualstudio.com/download
- Welcome to Python.org. (2025, June 12). Python.org. https://www.python.org/
- pyenv/pyenv: Simple Python version management. (Accessed June 13, 2025). GitHub. https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv
- Project Jupyter. (Accessed June 13, 2025). Home. https://jupyter.org/
- Visual Studio Marketplace. (Accessed June 13, 2025). https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/vscode
- Jupyter - Visual Studio Marketplace. (Accessed June 13, 2025). https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-toolsai.jupyter
- API documentation & design tools for teams | Swagger. (Accessed June 13, 2025). https://swagger.io/
- The collaborative API development platform. (Accessed June 13, 2025). Insomnia. https://insomnia.rest/
- Rapid. (Accessed June 13, 2025). section-1. https://rapidapi.com/
- Setting up Visual Studio Code. (2021, November 3). https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/setup-overview
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