You'll work against the Deskly API, a small hot-desk booking service. Forking it gives you your own copy to push to, and cloning that fork gives Native Git a local folder to connect. Working from a fork keeps the original repo clean while your collection lands in version control next to the service code.

1. Go to the template repo: github.com/Postman-Devrel/deskly-api.

2. Click Fork (top right), keep the name deskly-api, and create the fork under your own account.

3. Make sure your fork is Public — LiftOff verifies it with unauthenticated GitHub API calls and never asks for a token. If it's private, open Settings → General → Danger Zone → Change visibility and set it to public.

4. Clone your fork to your machine:

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   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/deskly-api.git
   cd deskly-api

5. Enter your GitHub username below. LiftOff saves it so the rest of this module can check your repo and committed files automatically.

Note: The repo must be public for validation to work — a private repo returns 404 to unauthenticated reads.

Native Git is scoped per service: one repo folder connects to one workspace. You're going to create that workspace now — it becomes the cloud counterpart of the folder you connect in the next step.

1. Open the Postman desktop app. Native Git is desktop-only — the Git-connected experience is not available in the web app.

2. Click Workspaces in the Postman header, then click Create.

3. On the Create your workspace form, name it exactly, replacing [Your name] with your own name:

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   [Your name] - Native Git

4. For Who can access, open the dropdown and choose Only you and invited people — Internal is already selected.

5. Leave the template on Blank workspace (already selected), then click Create Workspace.

Once the workspace is connected to Git in the next step, it shows up under Workspaces → View all workspaces → Project Workspaces.

Connecting a folder is what gives the workspace a Local View — an editable, file-backed copy of your Postman elements sitting next to your application code. Connect the root of the repo you cloned so Postman can see both the collection and the service code.

1. Open your [Your name] - Native Git workspace in the desktop app.
2. From the Postman left sidebar, click Files.
3. Click Open folder.
4. Open the deskly-api folder you cloned in Step 1, then click Open. Its contents appear in the file tree view.
5. Click Connect to workspace. This is what links the folder to your workspace and creates the .postman and postman folders in the repo.

Expected outcome: you can now switch between Local View and Cloud View using the control in the bottom left.

Caution: You can only connect one folder to one workspace at a time. To open your files in a different workspace, first disconnect: select File viewer options → Disconnect.