API Gateway Example

Project Objective

This project was created as part of an API skill assessment with a 48-hour time limit. The goal was not to build a single, purpose-driven application, but to showcase skills in RESTful API design, external API integration, and handling structured data.

The project combines implementation of three distinct challenges into a single API Gateway:

1. Simple Weather Query
   • Fetches weather data from the OpenWeather API based on a user-specified city.
   • Implements basic error handling for network failures and invalid input.
2. Employee Management Local API
   • Implements a CRUD-based REST API to manage a list of employees.
   • Includes endpoints for adding, retrieving, updating, and deleting employees with proper validation.
3. Payment Summary with Stripe API
   • Retrieves and summarizes payment charge data from the Stripe API for the past 30 days.
   • Outputs totals, transaction counts, and charge details.

Overview

My approach was to create an MVP to complete all objectives at the most basic level based on the requirements. There are many things I would change given more time, but I was limited in time and wanted to complete each objective. I have left this project in its original completed state to illustrate what was accomplished within the time limit.

Completing the requirements required learning at least 4 new (to me) technologies or platforms:

• OpenWeather API
• SQLite
• Stripe
• OpenAPI

I enjoyed this challenge! I love to learn new technologies and am able usually able to get up and running fairly quickly. I did run into several issues while figuring out some of the new stuff, but I was able to get a working API Gateway going by the deadline.

Part of the requirements also included a brief SQL Test.

Next Steps

I plan to fork this project, refine it by addressing areas I didn't have time to complete, and deploy it. Additionally, I’ll continue experimenting and learning new tools to enhance the project further with:

• Better (read: actual) authentication: My implementation is an unrefined, basic auth. It could be improved, but JWT or OAuth would be an actual solution.
• User interface: Login with dashboards to view weather and users, and interactivity with the employees REST API.
• Test suite: Unit tests are critical in production to be sure you're not breaking key functionality in future updates or refactors.

This process will allow me to expand my skill set and deepen my understanding of the technologies involved.

Project setup

Development Environment

To set up the development environment, you'll need to install the following tools:

1. Node.js
   Node.js is a JavaScript runtime that allows you to execute JavaScript code server-side. You'll need it to run the server for this project.

   • Download and Install Node.js
   • Node.js Documentation

2. NPM (Node Package Manager)
   NPM comes bundled with Node.js and is used to manage dependencies for your project. To verify if NPM is installed, run:

   npm --version

   • NPM Documentation

3. SQLite
   SQLite is a lightweight, serverless database engine used in this project.

   • Download SQLite
   • SQLite Documentation

Download and run the project

git clone https://github.com/JonathanCrider/api-gateway-example.git
cd api-gateway-example

Be sure to create a .env file and include the following variables:

touch .env

PORT=3001
OPENWEATHER_API_KEY=
STRIPE_SECRET_API_KEY=
X_API_KEY=

Install the dependencies and start the server locally:

npm i
npm run start:dev

API Documentation

API documentation for this project was published using OpenAPI

They are also published at https://jonathancrider.com/api-docs.html

To deploy locally, you can open your browser once the server is running to see the docs at the following URL (if your .env port is set to 3001):

http://localhost:3001/docs

API Package

Download the JSON and import into Insomnia:

Insomnia JSON