This GraphQL on Rails API (deployed endpoint) serves queries and mutations for Virtual Escape, an application that allows you to travel in covid-safe style from your couch (or, let's be real, bed). There's a whole world out there so put on your best sweats and come TFH (travel from home)!

What can I do on Virtual Escape?

• Search for a destination and see matching photos
• Create trips (these could be places that you've been to or have yet to visit)
• Add photos to your trip
  • upload a file
  • or save from your search results
• View stats like top saved destinations

I created this API for my application to Shopify's Backend Engineering Internship program. This is an API only (no user interface) but I plan to build out a React frontend for Virtual Escape.

Stack

• Ruby on Rails, GraphQL, RSpec, Travis-CI, Heroku, Cloudinary, PostgreSQL
• Some of the gems that I found most useful:
  • pry, factory bot, faker, shoulda matchers, simplecov, vcr, webmock

Readme Content

• Approaching the Challenge
• Local Setup
• External APIs
• Test Suite
• GraphQL Schema
• Database Schema
• Project Tracking
• Contributor

Approaching the Challenge

The task: build an image repository

• Features that meet this requirement:
  • Upload photos (using Active Storage)
  • Save an Unsplash photo's URL
  • Search images by location (pulls from Unsplash)

I could have created a monolith app without the need for a separate front-end but I thought that displaying my API development skills would be more relevant to a backend engineering position.

I consumed 2 RESTful APIs and exposed a GraphQL endpoint with several queries and mutations. For file upload I utilized Active Storage and am using Cloudinary for image hosting.

Local Setup

• Versions
  • Rails 6.1.0
  • Ruby 2.5.3
• Fork and clone the repository
• cd in your local repo version and run the following commands
  • To install gems:
    • bundle (if this fails, try to bundle update and then retry)
  • This API uses a few external APIs
    • Add a local application.yml file at the root (this will be ignored in gitcoverage)
    • Get API keys for the Unsplash and Mapquest API and add to your application.yml config:

    PHOTOS_API_KEY: your_key_here
    GEOLOCATION_API_KEY: your_key_here
    

  • To setup database:
    • rails db:create
    • rails db:migrate
    • rails db:seed
• Run your own development server:
  • rails s
  • You should be able to access the GraphQL interface and see available queries and mutations via the docs on http://localhost:3000/graphiql

External APIs

This API consumes the following APIs:

• Unsplash Search Photos API to search for images at a destination
  • Requirements for use: properly provide attribution for the photographer and Unsplash
• MapQuest Geocoding API to assign latitude and longitude to a trip's location

Test Suite

• Run with bundle exec rspec
• All tests should be passing
• 97% test coverage

GraphQL Schema

Endpoint (direct your POST requests here): https://virtual-escape-api.herokuapp.com/graphql

Resource Queries

Photos

• Search Photos: 10 photos that match a search term
  • Type: Photo
  • Arguments:

      argument :keyword, String, required: true
    

• Get Photos: all photos (user uploaded as well as those saved from Unsplash)
  • Type: Photo
  • Arguments: none

Users

• Get User: user by ID
  • Type: User
  • Arguments:

      argument :id, ID, required: true
    

• Get Users: all users
  • Type: User
  • Arguments: none

Trips

• Get Trip: get a trip by ID
  • Type: Trip
  • Arguments:

      argument :id, ID, required: true
    

Analytics Queries

• Top Destinations: top trip destinations, ranked highest to lowest
  • Type: destination
  • Arguments:

      argument :limit, Integer, required: false
    

Mutations

Photos

• Add Photo To Trip: add Unsplash photo to trip (saves to database and creates new photo_trip record)
  • Type: Photo
  • Arguments:

      argument :trip_id, ID, required: true
      argument :url, String, required: true
      argument :artist_name, String, required: true
      argument :artist_profile, String, required: true
      argument :unsplash_id, String, required: true
    

• Add User Photo To Trip: upload user photo to trip (saves to database, uploads image to Cloudinary, and creates new photo_trip record)
  • Type: Photo
  • Arguments:

      argument :trip_id, ID, required: true
      argument :user_photo, ApolloUploadServer::Upload, required: false
    

Trips

• Create Trip: create a new trip and have its coordinates automatically assigned
  • Type: Trip
  • Arguments:

      argument :user_id, ID, required: true
      argument :destination, String, required: false
      argument :traveled_to, Boolean, required: false
    

• Update Trip: update existing trip
  • Type: Trip
  • Arguments:

      argument :id, ID, required: true
      argument :destination, String, required: false
      argument :traveled_to, Boolean, required: false
    

Types

• Destination

    field :destination, String, null: false
    field :num_saved_trips, Integer, null: false
  

• Photo

    field :id, ID, null: false
    field :description, String, null: true
    field :url, String, null: true
    field :artist_name, String, null: true
    field :artist_profile, String, null: true
    field :unsplash_id, String, null: true
    field :user_uploaded, Boolean, null: false
    field :user_photo_url, String, null: true
  

• User

    field :id, ID, null: false
    field :email, String, null: false
    field :photos, [Types::PhotoType], null: false
    field :trips, [Types::TripType], null: false
  

• Trip

    field :id, ID, null: false
    field :user_id, ID, null: false
    field :destination, String, null: true
    field :traveled_to, Boolean, null: false
    field :photos, [Types::PhotoType], null: false
    field :latitude, Float, null: true
    field :longitude, Float, null: true
  

Database Schema

Project Tracking

GitHub project

• I used branching and pull requests to maintain clean version control

Next top priorities:

• User authentication with Firebase or Auth0 (#16)
• Secure requests by requiring an API key (#75)
• Research and implement testing of file uploading to avoid having to locally test in Altair (#66)
• Add edit and delete photo functionality (#22, #40)
• More insight queries like most saved photo, trending destinations, etc. (#55, #53, #54)

Contributor

• Leah Riffell | Github | LinkedIn