@bloom-housing/backend-core

Bloom Backend Services

This package is a NestJS application that provides a core set of backend services via REST API endpoints to apps using the Bloom Housing framework. Information is stored in a Postgres database, accessed via TypeORM.

OpenAPI Documentation

OpenAPI (fka Swagger) documentation is automatically generated by the server at http://localhost:3100/docs/ for a standard local development environment. A raw JSON version of the schema is also available at /docs-json/, suitable for API client code generation or other code-based consumers.

Getting Started

• Install Node.js 14.x brew install node@14.
• Install Postgres 12 brew install postgresql
• Install Redis brew install redis
• Copy the .env.template within backend/core to .env and edit variables appropriate to your local environment. Ensure sure the Database URL and Test Database URL match your Postgres configuration.
• Install dependencies yarn install within backend/core

Redis

To start Redis: redis-server.

To launch Redis as background service and restart at login: brew services start redis.

Test if Redis is working: redis-cli ping

Seeding the Database

There are two databases used in this project: bloom and bloom_test. The first is used every time you are starting a project with yarn dev and second one is only used in end-to-end tests. Corresponding TypeORM configs are defined in ormconfig.ts and ormconfig.test.ts. If you are just starting to work with the projects it's best to simply run:

yarn && yarn db:reseed

which will create the bloom DB for you, migrate it to the latest schema, and seed with appropriate dev data. If running the reseed command requires that you input a password for Postgres, set the following environment variables: PGUSER to postgres and PGPASSWORD to the default password you inputted for the postgres user during Postgres installation. If you get the FATAL: database "<user>" does not exist error please run: createdb <user> first.

Dropping the DB:

yarn db:drop

Creating the DB:

yarn db:create

Seeding the DB:

yarn db:seed

Generating a new migration:

yarn db:migration:generate

Applying migrations:

yarn db:migration:run

Running Tests

End-to-end tests:

yarn test:e2e:local

Unit tests:

yarn test

Translations

The backend keeps translations for email related content in the DB in the translations table. The /translations endpoint exposes CRUD operations on this table (admin only). Translations are defined for each county code and language pair e.g. (Alameda, en). To modify a particular translation pair:

1. Fetch GET /translations and list all the translations
2. Find an ID of a pair that interest you
3. Use PUT /translations/:translationId to modify it's content

Environment Variables

Name	Description	Default	Type
PORT	Port number the server will listen to for incoming connections	3100	number
NODE_ENV	Controls build optimization and enables some additional logging when set to development	development	"development" | "production"
DATABASE_URL	Database connection	postgres://localhost/bloom	string
TEST_DATABASE_URL	Test database connection	postgres://localhost/bloom_test	string
REDIS_TLS_URL	Secure Redis connection	rediss://127.0.0.1:6379/	string
REDIS_URL	TCP Redis connection string	redis://127.0.0.1:6379/0	string
REDIS_USE_TLS	Flag controlling the use of TLS or unsecure transport for Redis	0	0 | 1
THROTTLE_TTL	Rate limit TTL in seconds (currently used only for application submission endpoint)	60	number
THROTTLE_LIMIT	Max number of operations in given time window THROTTLE_TTL after which HTTP 429 Too Many Requests will be returned by the server	2	number
EMAIL_API_KEY	Sendgrid API key (see sendgrid docs for creating API keys	Available internally	string
EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS	Controls "from" field of all the emails sent by the process	'Bloom Dev Housing Portal [e-mail]'	string
APP_SECRET	Secret used for signing JWT tokens (generate it with e.g. openssl rand -hex 48)	Available internally	string
PARTNERS_PORTAL_URL	URL for partners site	http://localhost:3001	string