A local-only workspace for trying API ideas without creating an account. It keeps collections on the developer machine, which is useful for private debugging, early experimentation, and regulated environments. Work can later be exported and imported into a regular project when collaboration or cloud synchronization is needed.
What a scratch pad is for
A scratch pad is a temporary, local-only workspace for exploring API ideas before you commit them to a shared project. Its value is speed and privacy: you can test requests, inspect responses, and iterate without creating an account or broadcasting unfinished work to a team.
Because the data stays on the developer machine, a scratch pad is useful in NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 environments where early experimentation needs to stay isolated from production systems and collaboration tools.
How it differs from a regular project
The key distinction is scope. A scratch pad is intentionally disposable and personal, while a regular project is built for sharing, persistence, and repeatable team workflows. That difference changes how developers use it: a scratch pad is ideal for quick API probes, payload shaping, and one-off debugging, but it should not become the place where long-lived work quietly accumulates.
This is why the export-and-import path matters. Once an idea has value, moving it into a normal project preserves the test history while shifting the work into a setting that supports collaboration, review, and controlled reuse.
Why local-only storage matters
Keeping collections on the local machine reduces unnecessary exposure during early testing. It can limit accidental sharing of endpoints, headers, secrets, and draft payloads while a request is still being refined, which is especially useful when the work touches sensitive systems or regulated data.
That privacy benefit is only real if the developer machine itself is trusted and maintained. If the endpoint is compromised, local convenience can still become a source of data leakage, because the scratch pad may hold the same request material a team would otherwise protect more formally.
When to move from scratch pad to project
A scratch pad is the right place to start, but not the right place to finish. Move the work when the API idea becomes stable enough to share, when another person needs to review it, or when the collection starts to carry reusable logic, environment data, or test cases that deserve versioned ownership.
For teams standardising API work, OWASP API Security Top 10 is a useful reference for thinking about the kinds of API failures a local prototype can help reveal before they become part of a broader implementation.
Risk and Threat Considerations
A scratch pad is low-friction by design, and that makes it easy to overlook what gets stored there. The main risk is not the workspace itself, but the habit of using it for sensitive request material, long-lived tokens, or ad hoc testing that never gets cleaned up.
Failure mechanism: Local collections can accumulate secrets, test credentials, and internal endpoint details, then survive longer than intended on a developer machine or be exported into a less controlled project structure.
Impact: Exposure of request history or copied credentials can support unauthorized access, widen the blast radius of a workstation compromise, and create lingering operational risk in regulated environments.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP API Security Top 10 addresses the attack surface, NIST CSF 2.0 and CIS Controls v8 set the technical controls, and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 defines the regulatory obligations.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| OWASP API Security Top 10 | API8 — Security Misconfiguration | Scratch pad workflows can expose API test data and unsafe local setup patterns. |
| Recommendation — Review local API test workspaces for exposure paths and unsafe configuration before reuse. | ||
| NIST CSF 2.0 | PR.AA-05 — Managed Access Control | Local API experimentation still benefits from controlling who can access sensitive request material. |
| Recommendation — Restrict access to local API collections and exported work to approved users. | ||
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | A.8.12 — Data leakage prevention | Scratch pads can retain sensitive request content and credentials outside formal repositories. |
| Recommendation — Prevent leakage from local workspace artifacts that may contain sensitive API data. | ||
| CIS Controls v8 | CIS-3 — Data Protection | Local scratch pad artifacts may store secrets, endpoints, and test payloads requiring protection. |
| Recommendation — Protect local API artifacts that contain sensitive information from unnecessary exposure. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
Common misunderstanding: A scratch pad feels harmless because it is local, but local-only storage is not the same as low-risk storage. Treat it as a transient working area, not as a place to park anything you would want retained, audited, or shared.
Practitioner takeaway: Use scratch pads for rapid experimentation, then export only the material that is worth preserving and remove anything sensitive before the workspace is abandoned or reused.
Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group
- What is a realistic NHI security maturity roadmap for an enterprise starting from scratch?
- Should organisations rebuild identity systems from scratch after a compromise?
- How should security teams start a third party risk management programme from scratch?
- Why do scratch-built identity systems create audit and lifecycle problems?
Deepen Your Knowledge
Reviewed and updated by the NHIMG editorial team on September 24, 2026.
NHI Mgmt Group — the #1 independent authority on Non-Human Identity, IAM, and Agentic AI security. nhimg.org
