web-comments

A simple Express API written in TypeScript for guest comments on my static site @ rusingh.com.

Idealogy

Comments should be a part of my static site repository and handled at the static site level. This is most performant and keeps data in one place. There is no API endpoint to fetch comments as the app does not store any data by itself, for example, in a database.

All operations (well, just the three) interact with my GitHub repository. Currently only GitHub is supported but I may be open to adding support for Gitea or Codeberg should I switch to such options in the future.

Environment

The following environment variables are necessary:

• NODE_ENV (optional) - defaults to production
• SENDGRID_API_KEY - SendGrid API key used for sending notification emails
• GITHUB_PAT - GitHub personal access token

API Endpoints

v1

POST /api/v1/comment/new

Accepts URL encoded requests. Redirects to ${origin}/thank-you/ or ${origin}/error. If the origin is not available, it simply responds with a 200/500 HTTP response.

Form encoded data required

• name

• email

• site

• comment

• age (honeypot)

• fallback-referer: Some browsers do not add referer headers to form submission requests. We rely on this as a fallback. Requires JavaScript client-side.

  const target = document.querySelector(
    "form > input[name='fallback-referer']"
  );
  if (target) target.setAttribute("value", window.location.href);
  

GET /api/v1/comment/moderate

Accepts URL encoded requests. Responds with a plain-text message upon success.

Query parameters

• comment_id
• action: approve or delete

Related

You may also be interested in checking open-jamstack-comments, which runs serverless.