Read these instructions carefully. Understand exactly what is expected before starting this Sprint Challenge.
This challenge allows you to practice the concepts and techniques learned over the past sprint and apply them in a concrete project. This sprint explored Authentication and Testing. During this sprint, you studied authentication, JSON web tokens, unit testing, and backend testing. In your challenge this week, you will demonstrate your mastery of these skills by creating a dad jokes app.
This is an individual assessment. All work must be your own. All projects will be submitted to Codegrade for automated review. You will also be given feedback by code reviewers on Monday following the challenge submission. For more information on the review process click here.
You are not allowed to collaborate during the sprint challenge.
- Run
npm install
to install your dependencies. - Build your database executing
npm run migrate
. - Run tests locally executing
npm test
.
Dad jokes are all the rage these days! In this challenge, you will build a real wise-guy application.
Users must be able to call the [POST] /api/auth/register
endpoint to create a new account, and the [POST] /api/auth/login
endpoint to get a token.
We also need to make sure nobody without the token can call [GET] /api/jokes
and gain access to our dad jokes.
We will hash the user's password using bcryptjs
, and use JSON Web Tokens and the jsonwebtoken
library.
Your finished project must include all of the following requirements (further instructions are found inside each file):
- An authentication workflow with functionality for account creation and login, implemented inside
api/auth/auth-router.js
. - Middleware used to restrict access to resources from non-authenticated requests, implemented inside
api/middleware/restricted.js
. - A minimum of 2 tests per API endpoint, written inside
api/server.test.js
.
IMPORTANT Notes:
- Do not exceed 2^8 rounds of hashing with
bcryptjs
. - If you use environment variables make sure to provide fallbacks in the code (e.g.
process.env.SECRET || "shh"
). - You are welcome to create additional files but do not move or rename existing files or folders.
- Do not alter your
package.json
file except to install extra libraries. Do not update existing packages. - The database already has the
users
table, but if you run into issues, the migration is available. - In your solution, it is essential that you follow best practices and produce clean and professional results.
- Schedule time to review, refine, and assess your work and perform basic professional polishing.
- Submit via Codegrade by pushing commits to your
main
branch on Github. - Check Codegrade before the deadline to compare its results against your local tests.
- Check Codegrade on the days following the Sprint Challenge for reviewer feedback.
- New commits will be evaluated by Codegrade if pushed before the sprint challenge deadline.
Be prepared to demonstrate your understanding of this week's concepts by answering questions on the following topics.
- Differences between using sessions or JSON Web Tokens for authentication.
- The main difference between the two is the location where proof of authtication persists. With sessions, a list of valid user sessions is stored on the server side and checked against a cookie that comes along with subsequent user requests. In this method, the server has control of all valid sessions and can revoke access at any time. JSON Web Tokens are stored on the client side after authentication and are included in any subsequent request authorization headers by the client to restricted endpoints. JWTs have an expiration date that cannot be altered by the server.
- What does
bcryptjs
do to help us store passwords in a secure manner?- bcryptjs uses cryptography to hash plain text passwords so they can be safely store in the database. This way, if a malicious entity were to gain access to the database they would not be able to decifer the plain text value of passwords and would be prevented from having access to every user account.
- How are unit tests different from integration and end-to-end testing?
- Unit tests focus on evaluating a single, independent block of code such as a function. There are large amounts of unit tests in a codebase and they need to run quickly. Integration and end-to-end tests evaluate functionality and involve multiple units of code (or the entire app) working together. They are slower to write and slower to run.
- How does Test Driven Development change the way we write applications and tests?
- In TDD, the objectives for the end product are first written out as tests such that if the tests pass the MVP for the project is met. Using the prewritten tests as a guide, code is written and once passing the product is finished and functional.