To-Do service API

Tutorial: Add a new task

In this tutorial you’ll learn you how to add a new task in the To-Do Service API.

The tutorial should take about 10 minutes to complete.

Before you start

Make sure you’ve completed Before you start a tutorial and set up your development system.

When you finish setting up your development system, you should have the server running locally at http://localhost:3000. To check that it’s running, or to restart it after ending a session, use this command:

cd <your-github-workspace>/to-do-service/api
    json-server -w to-do-db-source.json

If your server is running, you’ll see this:

Type s + enter at any time to create a snapshot of the database
Watching...

Add a new task

Use the POST method to add a task in the To-Do Service. Here’s how to send the request with both Postman and cURL.

Using Postman

In the Postman desktop app, navigate to Create a New API Request and select New Request. Give the new request the following values.

• METHOD: POST
• URL: {base_url}/tasks
• Headers:
  • Content-Type: application/json
• Request Body:

    {
        "user_id": 3,
        "title": "Get new tires",
        "description": "Get new tires for Hoppity",
        "due_date": "2025-03-11T14:00",
        "warning": "-60"
    }

Change the JSON values to fit your new task, and click Send.

Using cURL

If you’d rather use cURL in command line, here’s what the same request looks like.

curl -X POST "{base_url}/tasks" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"user_id\": 3, \"title\": \"Get new tires\", \"description\": \"Get new tires for Hoppity\", \"due_date\": \"2025-03-11T14:00\", \"warning\": \"-60\"}"

Example response

Whether you use Postman or cURL, if the request is successful, you’ll get a JSON response that looks like this:

    {
        "user_id": 3,
        "title": "Get new tires",
        "description": "Get new tires for Hoppity",
        "due_date": "2025-03-11T14:00",
        "warning": "-60",
        "id": 5
    }

This response is the same as the body of the request, except that it includes an id property, which contains the unique identifier of the task resource you just created. You can now retrieve the new task by sending a GET request to /tasks/{id}. Here’s what that request looks like in Postman:

GET http://localhost:3000/tasks/5

And in cURL:

curl http://localhost:3000/tasks/5

The JSON response returned is the same as the one returned by the POST request.

Troubleshooting

Here are a couple of errors your might run into.

• 404: Not Found most likely means an error in the URL. Try checking and re-entering it.

• Could not send request means the local server isn’t running and needs to restart.

Next steps

Now that you can add tasks, learn how to enroll a new user.

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