reginapizza / validity-coding-challenge

README

Congratulations! You've made it to the coding challenge part of the interview for the BriteVerify team at Validity.

At Validity, we invest heavily in our developers. For that reason, we want to make sure we’re only hiring the best engineers; to do that, we have to see how you code and solve problems, not in front of a white board but at a keyboard. This is your opportunity to shine, to show us how good you are and for us to see what we can expect if we were to hire you. You will demonstrate your ability to understand a problem, find a solution, code that solution and present it to us, in terms of code comments, README, and explanations during the in-person interviews.

We're very excited to see what you create. If at any point, you have questions on the exercise or anything is unclear, please don't hesistate to reach out. Let's get started!

The Problem

This repo comes complete with a dockererized rails api--with a few bugs. It is your job to clone this repo, build the docker image, and find the bugs. In the below sections are an itemized list of tasks we'd like you to complete before submitting the challenge. Additionally, if you find that too easy and are looking for an extra challenge, we encourage you to try out the bonus tasks! They are, of course, in no way required and will not reflect against you.

The Solution

Given this clone repo, we ask that you push into your own github account. Then create a PR with all of the changes you made so it is easy for us to see the work you've put into this challenge. Feel free to document any changes via comments, writing your own README, etc.

Dependencies

Docker

You might be required to create a Docker account if you do not already have one already.

Docker Tutorial Install Docker for Mac Install Docker for Windows Docker-Compose (optional reading)

Postman

We recommend using Postman for API calls, feel free to use any platform you feel comfortable with.

Download Postman

Rspec Best Pracices

For those unfamiliar with rspec.

Better Specs

Initial Setup

To begin, run the following commands after cloning and stepping inside the repo:

docker-compose build
docker-compose run --rm --service-ports web bash
./presetup.sh
rails s -p 3000

This builds the docker container, starts the container, sets up the database, and starts the rails server.

To get list of currently running docker containers docker ps

This will return a list similar to this:

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                    COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                     NAMES
186241d08ca4        briteverify_sample_web   "entrypoint.sh bash"     8 minutes ago       Up 8 minutes        0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp    briteverify_sample_web_run_b0ef66d0fcff

To enter a docker container, use the CONTAINER ID or NAMES:

• docker exec -it 186241d08ca4 bash
• docker exec -it briteverify_sample_web_run_b0ef66d0fcff bash

This will allow you to connect to the container you opened in the first step with the docker-compose run command. Once the container is built you can simply do a docker-compose up and the rails server will automatically start.

Explore the App

This application is meant to do a simple validation on email format. It is already set up to handle RESTful requests with the email_verification API. To try out some of the functionality, go to the rails console or in Postman, try a couple of API requests.

Create a new verification via API call:

curl -X POST \
  http://localhost:3000/api/v1/email_verifications \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "email_verification": {
    	"address": "[e-mail]"
    }
}'

Create a new verification via rails console:

EmailAddress.create(address: '[e-mail]').check_status

It looks like it's working!

Lets try one more command:

EmailAddress.create(address: 'foobar.com').check_status

Uh oh! Seems like we have a bug. Let's run our rspec tests and see if we can figure out what happened here. Exit out of the rails console and run rspec:

rspec . or rspec /spec

Seems like something is not quite right, a test is failing! Please continue on to see the list of tasks.

The Tasks

Please timebox this challenge to around 2 hours, if you have extra time or would simply like an extra challenge, check out the bonus section! The main tasks are of higher priority, however.

Task 1

Fix the failing test by implementing verification logic in the EmailAddress#check_status method. This is where your creativity can flouish! When you've finished, the rspec tests should pass.

Task 2

Currently, the API only accepts one email at a time. It would nice if we had the option to verify a whole list at one time. Implement a way to pass in up to 10 emails at once, and return a status for each.

Bulk API requirements:

• allow anywhere from 1 to 10 email addresses
• return the list of email addresses with their corresponding statuses

Bonus:

• return an error if no email addresses are present
• return an error when more than 10 email addresses are present

Task 3

Turns out our API is open to the public! Let's lock this down following these requirements:

• allow only active users in the database to have access to the API (remeber that users in the database can be active or inactive)
• only existing users can gain access to the API

Again, let your creativity flourish. Be sure to document the new API call in your README updates--we love examples!

Task 4

Let's give this API a UI! Add a basic form for verifiying an email address to the main_controller and connect it to either of the APIs. Return the status of the response however you see fit.

Bonus Tasks

The below are listed in no particular order, complete as few or as many as you'd like.

• Due to security and privacy concerns, we do not want to store raw emails in our database. Implement a way to store results, but also not expose raw emails in the database.
• Allow a CSV upload feature in the UI that can verify up to 100 emails (modify the Bulk API to handle a larger load).
• Create a Postman collection to test a valid and invalid endpoint.
• Write rspec tests for the new logic you've implemented in the models and controllers.