Myfirst Backend API Specifications

Created the backend for a bootcamp directory website.

Documentation

• Use Postman to create documentation
• Use docgen to create HTML files from Postman
• Add html files as the / route for the api

Functionality

Bootcamps

• List all bootcamps in the database
  • Pagination
  • Select specific fields in result
  • Limit number of results
  • Filter by fields
• Search bootcamps by radius from zipcode
  • Use a geocoder to get exact location and coords from a single address field
• Get single bootcamp
• Create new bootcamp
  • Authenticated users only
  • Must have the role "publisher" or "admin"
  • Only one bootcamp per publisher (admins can create more)
  • Field validation via Mongoose
• Upload a photo for bootcamp
  • Owner only
  • Photo will be uploaded to local filesystem
• Update bootcamps
  • Owner only
  • Validation on update
• Delete Bootcamp
  • Owner only
• Calculate the average cost of all courses for a bootcamp
• Calculate the average rating from the reviews for a bootcamp

Courses

• List all courses for bootcamp
• List all courses in general
  • Pagination, filtering, etc
• Get single course
• Create new course
  • Authenticated users only
  • Must have the role "publisher" or "admin"
  • Only the owner or an admin can create a course for a bootcamp
  • Publishers can create multiple courses
• Update course
  • Owner only
• Delete course
  • Owner only

Reviews

• List all reviews for a bootcamp
• List all reviews in general
  • Pagination, filtering, etc
• Get a single review
• Create a review
  • Authenticated users only
  • Must have the role "user" or "admin" (no publishers)
• Update review
  • Owner only
• Delete review
  • Owner only

Users & Authentication

• Authentication will be ton using JWT/cookies
  • JWT and cookie should expire in 30 days
• User registration
  • Register as a "user" or "publisher"
  • Once registered, a token will be sent along with a cookie (token = xxx)
  • Passwords must be hashed
• User login
  • User can login with email and password
  • Plain text password will compare with stored hashed password
  • Once logged in, a token will be sent along with a cookie (token = xxx)
• User logout
  • Cookie will be sent to set token = none
• Get user
  • Route to get the currently logged in user (via token)
• Password reset (lost password)
  • User can request to reset password
  • A hashed token will be emailed to the users registered email address
  • A put request can be made to the generated url to reset password
  • The token will expire after 10 minutes
• Update user info
  • Authenticated user only
  • Separate route to update password
• User CRUD
  • Admin only
• Users can only be made admin by updating the database field manually

Security

• Encrypt passwords and reset tokens
• Prevent NoSQL injections
• Add headers for security (helmet)
• Prevent cross site scripting - XSS
• Add a rate limit for requests of 100 requests per 10 minutes
• Protect against http param polution
• Use cors to make API public

Code Related Suggestions

• NPM scripts for dev and production env
• Config file for important constants
• Use controller methods with documented descriptions/routes
• Error handling middleware
• Authentication middleware for protecting routes and setting user roles
• Validation using Mongoose and no external libraries
• Use async/await (create middleware to clean up controller methods)
• Create a database seeder to import and destroy data