TinyBelly

Coding Kata for GoldBelly.com

Requirements

URL Shortener: Back End

Your task is to build the back end of a web service for shortening URLs. This will be an API service that a client would communicate with. The deliverable is the source code, written in Ruby, using whichever libraries, tools, database(s), and development methodologies you choose.

The requirements intentionally leave out many details. This is an opportunity for you to make decisions about the design of the service. What you leave out is just as important as what you include!

Product Requirements:

Clients should be able to create a shortened URL from a longer URL.
Clients should be able to specify a custom slug.
Clients should be able to expire / delete previous URLs.
Users should be able to open the URL and get redirected.

Project Requirements:

The project should include an automated test suite.
The project should include a README file with instructions for running the web service and its tests. You should also use the README to provide context on choices made during development.
The project should be packaged as a zip file or submitted via a hosted git platform (Github, Gitlab, etc).

Install

Dependencies

direnv
Docker

Usage

Environment Variables

name	usage
POSTGRES_HOST	Hostname for the postgres instance.
POSTGRES_USER	User to login to postgres.
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	Password to login to postgres.
PRIMARY_EMAIL	Email address used to login to the rails app in development.
PRIMARY_PASSWORD	Password used to login to the rails app in development.
RAILS_MAX_THREADS	How many threads to run in the app and sidekiq.
REDIS_URL	Url used to connect to redis.
SUPER_SECRET	JWT encode/decode secret

Getting Started

Create and modify the .envrc.secrets to have values for the secret vars documented in .envrc.

Run direnv allow to populate your environment with the env vars configured in .envrc and .envrc.secrets.

Run postgres and redis in the background:

docker-compose up -d postgres redis

Build the local docker image:

docker-compose build

Cache the ruby gems:

docker-compose run --rm app bundle install

Setup the database:

docker-compose run --rm app rails db:create db:migrate

Seed the database:

docker-compose run --rm app rails db:seed

Start the rails app:

docker-compose up app

Start sidekiq for background jobs:

docker-compose up sidekiq

Start webpack for the frontend:

docker-compose up webpack

Run the Test Suite

docker-compose run --rm app rake test

Postman collection Link

https://www.getpostman.com/collections/760cd485f08c1be61dec

You have to create a user, then add the token returned into headers.

Reflection on choices

I utilized a docker file from a personal project to cut down on time so that is why there are a few extra moving pieces. I chose to use JWT for my authorization across my API, and just Bcrypt for password encryption into the postgres database for the users. I added the end points required as well as a few that were useful for testing.

I started out by writing out tables and relationships in my notebook as well as a few controller actions that I thought would be necessary. Then I generated my migrations and populated my database. For my development process I utilized Postman for api testing, eventually got around to writing minitests then followed that up with refactors of both.

Things I could improve on:

Better validations on content of the original url, maybe test that they resolve.
build a custom 404 page for if the url we redirect to is not valid, or the slug is no longer valid. I just used json for now.
Test coverage could be more detailed when testing, not just testing one field or the object was created.
I should have and normally do use smaller incremental commits.

ajmyers01 / TinyBelly