CitizenOS-API

CitizenOS API - https://api.citizenos.com

TOC:

• Running locally
  • Prerequisites
  • Installing
  • Running
  • Testing
  • Debugging
• Contributing
  • Pull requests
• Improvement ideas

Running locally

Prerequisites

• Understand the architecture of CitizenOS platform
• Software
  • Node.JS >= 6.13.1 (https://github.com/mklement0/n-install)
  • PostgreSQL >= 9.5
  • Etherpad-Lite - https://github.com/citizenos/etherpad-lite-heroku. See the README.md and use the config/local.json.example as a basis to get the right plugin configuration.

Installing

• Get the source - git clone git@github.com:citizenos/citizenos-api.git
• Go to the source directory - cd citizenos-api
• Install dependencies - npm install
• Add to dev.api.citizenos.com to your hosts file - sudo -- sh -c -e "echo '127.0.0.1 dev.api.citizenos.com' >> /etc/hosts"
• Create the DB:
  • NOTE: Do not use this in production, you may want different privileges!

  sudo su -c "createdb citizenos" postgres
  sudo su -c "psql -c \"CREATE USER citizenos WITH PASSWORD 'citizenos'\"" postgres
  sudo su -c "psql -c \"GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE citizenos TO citizenos\"" postgres
  

  • Create the DB structure - npm run createdb - this test should pass, if it does not or it hangs, you should consult the ./logs/app.log

Running

• Start the app - npm start
• By default API is available https://dev.citizenos.com:3003 or over plain HTTP http://dev.api.citizenos.com:3002.

NOTES:

• When using over HTTPS you need to add ./config/certs/citizenosCARoot.pem to your trusted CA certificate store or browsers will complain.

Testing

• You need an instance of citizenos-api and etherpad-lite running before you execute tests.
• npm test

Debugging

• By default logs are in ./logs/app.log

Contributing

Pull requests

• All pull requests to master branch
• Live site runs on prod branch

Improvement ideas

• Support different authentication and signing methods so that anyone could add their country specifics. That takes us to modular architecture where ideally I would like to add new methods by installing a module and configuring it.
• Generic file storage - don't force the use of AWS as a storage. As a starting point local file storage would be nice for "off the grid" deployments.
• Implement generic "if this, then that" engine where anyone can plug into Topic state changes with their own custom logic. Right now for example Rahvaalgatus.ee has a flow where a signed document is sent to Parliament via e-mail, but this is very region/partner specific.
• Email layout designing should be much simpler. Right now there is hard-coded CitizenOS layout and special layout for Rahvaalgatus.ee. We may consider using MailChimp or other services so that there is a separate service where mails are designed and sent and for which each Partner pays themselves.
• ...