Serverless Todo App

Project that implements a simple TODO application using AWS Lambda and Serverless framework. Search for all comments starting with the TODO: in the code to find the placeholders implemented. This repositoty is a project assignment for the Udacity Cloud Developer Nanodegree program. Feel free to read my implementation and to get in touch with me in case of issues.

Functionality of the application

This application will allow creating/removing/updating/fetching TODO items. Each TODO item can optionally have an attachment image. Each user only has access to TODO items that he/she has created.

TODO items

The application store TODO items, and each TODO item contains the following fields:

• todoId (string) - a unique id for an item
• createdAt (string) - date and time when an item was created
• name (string) - name of a TODO item (e.g. "Change a light bulb")
• dueDate (string) - date and time by which an item should be completed
• done (boolean) - true if an item was completed, false otherwise
• attachmentUrl (string) (optional) - a URL pointing to an image attached to a TODO item

Functions to be implemented

The following functions were implemented and configured in the serverless.yml file:

• Auth - this function implement a custom authorizer for API Gateway that should be added to all other functions.

• GetTodos - return all TODOs for a current user. A user id can be extracted from a JWT token that is sent by the frontend

It should return data that looks like this:

{
  "items": [
    {
      "todoId": "123",
      "createdAt": "2019-07-27T20:01:45.424Z",
      "name": "Buy milk",
      "dueDate": "2019-07-29T20:01:45.424Z",
      "done": false,
      "attachmentUrl": "http://example.com/image.png"
    },
    {
      "todoId": "456",
      "createdAt": "2019-07-27T20:01:45.424Z",
      "name": "Send a letter",
      "dueDate": "2019-07-29T20:01:45.424Z",
      "done": true,
      "attachmentUrl": "http://example.com/image.png"
    },
  ]
}

• CreateTodo - create a new TODO for a current user. A shape of data send by a client application to this function can be found in the CreateTodoRequest.ts file

It receives a new TODO item to be created in JSON format that looks like this:

{
  "createdAt": "2019-07-27T20:01:45.424Z",
  "name": "Buy milk",
  "dueDate": "2019-07-29T20:01:45.424Z",
  "done": false,
  "attachmentUrl": "http://example.com/image.png"
}

It returns a new TODO item that looks like this:

{
  "item": {
    "todoId": "123",
    "createdAt": "2019-07-27T20:01:45.424Z",
    "name": "Buy milk",
    "dueDate": "2019-07-29T20:01:45.424Z",
    "done": false,
    "attachmentUrl": "http://example.com/image.png"
  }
}

• UpdateTodo - it updates a TODO item created by a current user. A shape of data send by a client application to this function can be found in the UpdateTodoRequest.ts file

It receives an object that contains three fields that can be updated in a TODO item:

{
  "name": "Buy bread",
  "dueDate": "2019-07-29T20:01:45.424Z",
  "done": true
}

The id of an item that should be updated is passed as a URL parameter.

It returns an empty body.

• DeleteTodo - should delete a TODO item created by a current user. Expects an id of a TODO item to remove.

It returns an empty body.

• GenerateUploadUrl - returns a pre-signed URL that can be used to upload an attachment file for a TODO item.

It returns a JSON object that looks like this:

{
  "uploadUrl": "https://s3-bucket-name.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/image.png"
}

All functions are already connected to appropriate events from API Gateway.

An id of a user can be extracted from a JWT token passed by a client.

Frontend

The client folder contains a web application that can use the API developed in the project.

This frontend work with your serverless application once it is developed, you don't need to make any changes to the code. The only file that you need to edit is the config.ts file in the client folder. This file configures your client application just as it was done in the course and contains an API endpoint and Auth0 configuration:

const apiId = '...' API Gateway id
export const apiEndpoint = `https://${apiId}.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/dev`

export const authConfig = {
  domain: '...',    // Domain from Auth0
  clientId: '...',  // Client id from an Auth0 application
  callbackUrl: 'http://localhost:3000/callback'
}

Authentication

To configure authentication in your application, you would have to create an Auth0 application and copy "domain" and "client id" to the config.ts file in the client folder. I recommend to use asymmetrically encrypted JWT tokens.

Logging

The starter code comes with a configured Winston logger that creates JSON formatted log statements. It is used to write log messages like this:

import { createLogger } from '../../utils/logger'
const logger = createLogger('auth')

// You can provide additional information with every log statement
// This information can then be used to search for log statements in a log storage system
logger.info('User was authorized', {
  // Additional information stored with a log statement
  key: 'value'
})

Database Model

To store TODO items, I have decided to use DynamoDB table with local secondary index(es).

TodosTable:
  Type: AWS::DynamoDB::Table
  Properties:
    AttributeDefinitions:
      - AttributeName: partitionKey
        AttributeType: S
      - AttributeName: sortKey
        AttributeType: S
      - AttributeName: indexKey
        AttributeType: S
    KeySchema:
      - AttributeName: partitionKey
        KeyType: HASH
      - AttributeName: sortKey
        KeyType: RANGE
    BillingMode: PAY_PER_REQUEST
    TableName: ${self:provider.environment.TODOS_TABLE}

To query an index you need to use the query() method like:

await this.dynamoDBClient
  .query({
    TableName: 'table-name',
    KeyConditionExpression: 'paritionKey = :paritionKey',
    ExpressionAttributeValues: {
      ':paritionKey': partitionKeyValue
    }
  })
  .promise()

How to run the application

Backend

To deploy an application run the following commands:

cd backend
npm install
sls deploy -v

Frontend

To run a client application first edit the client/src/config.ts file to set correct parameters. And then run the following commands:

cd client
npm install
npm run start

This should start a development server with the React application that will interact with the serverless TODO application.

How to deploy the application to AWS

I am assuming that you already have configured your AWS account in your terminal, and already installed aws CLI and serverless framework. Type the following commands in your terminal (assuming that you are in the root project):

cd backend
export NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=4096
sls deploy -v

Postman collection

An alternative way to test your API, you can use the Postman collection that contains sample requests. You can find a Postman collection in this project. To import this collection, do the following.

Click on the import button:

Click on the "Choose Files":

Select a file to import:

Right click on the imported collection to set variables for the collection:

Provide variables for the collection (similarly to how this was done in the course):