github-search-api

This was a project for an interview I did. Basically just a limited wrapper of Githubs search api.

Design decisions

GRPC

I decided to go with GRPC for the api because it's really nice to work with in go, and I lack experience in the GRPC arena. It's good for keeping an api contract, and compiles nicely into go structs.

Using Docker

Really simple to do, and easy to use. Makes the server simple to deploy.

Github search endpoint

There are multiple endpoints for specific things in github's search api. I decided to use /search/code because it returns files, and in the protos the result has a "file_url". I think they match up pretty nicely, and I didn't want to overwhelm the response with too many results per endpoint I added. I cut down this endpoint from 100 results to 30 already.

What is a repo?

For the repo field in the Result, I could have put a few things like git@github.com/[url stuff] but I decided to go with the https .git file e.g. https://github.com/JacobPuff/github-search-api.git. What I return would depend on the use case, and this covers two for one in. You can clone the repo, and github will redirect you if you visit in a browser to view the repo.

Why are the env vars split for docker-compose?

Just for ease of use and separation of concerns. I was able to easily split search.env to just have the search variables, and keep the internal GH_SEARCH_SERVER_ADDRESS variable on it's own in a nice way.

Limitations

Limitations are pretty much the same as github's. You have to narrow down the search because this code doesn't use any authentication. You can find out how to narrow it down here https://docs.github.com/en/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-code

Running

Docker-compose

Easiest method, run docker-compose up in the root directory and it will bring up the server and then the client that'll run a search. You can modify the search in the search.env file. To run just the server run docker-compose up server. If you want more results per search you can use the GH_RESULTS_PER_PAGE env var for the server, which defaults to 30.

Docker

This method allows the server to be run alone, or with a few more commands the client with it. For the client you can modify the search in the search.env file. If you want more results per search you can use the GH_RESULTS_PER_PAGE env var for the server, which defaults to 30.

For the server with docker you'll want to build it with

docker build . -t gh-search-project-server

And if you want the client too

docker build . -f client.Dockerfile -t gh-search-project-client

To run just the server use

docker run -it -p 9090:9090 gh-search-project-server

Afterwards you can kill the program with Ctrl+C or equivalent. You know how docker works.

To run the server and the client you'll need to make a docker network

docker network create ghsp-network

then run the server

docker run -it --rm --name ghsp-server --network ghsp-network gh-search-project-server

then you can run the client using this, the client doesn't need a name but it can make looking at the containers running easier

docker run -it --rm --name ghsp-client --network ghsp-network --env-file search.env gh-search-project-client

With this method youll want to clean up the docker network

docker network rm ghsp-network

Just golang

You can run this project without docker, it just requires a few more initial steps. This is how I run the client for manual testing for now.

1. Install buf. You can find out how here https://docs.buf.build/installation
2. Install go grpc dependencies

go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@latest
go install google.golang.org/grpc/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc@latest

3. Compile protobufs in the root of the project. This uses buf.gen.yaml and buf.work.yaml

buf generate

4. Run the server. The server uses ResultsPerPage from appconfig if you want to get more results. It defaults to 30.

go run server/main.go

5. Run the client. The client has two variables for search params at the top of the main function if you wanna change their default values.

go run client/client.go

TODO

This is what I'd do if I had more time/the scope of the project was bigger

• Move protos into their own repo doing releases to the buf BSR. This allows for easier creation of custom clients
• CI/CD tests
• CI/CD controlled semantic releases
• CI/CD PR name validation
• Could do the helm chart thing