Anansi

Overview

Anansi is a backend service designed to send real-time notifications to users via WebSockets. It supports user authentication and delivery/read receipts, ensuring that notifications are sent and acknowledged. The service uses MongoDB for persistent storage and Redis for caching and managing WebSocket connections.

Features

• User registration and login with JWT authentication
• Real-time notifications via WebSockets
• Delivery and read receipts

Technologies

• Node.js
• Express.js
• WebSocket
• MongoDB
• Redis
• JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
• Mongoose
• Bcrypt

Architecture

Note: This project emphasizes the functionality of WebSocket notifications rather than the overall API architecture.

The architecture follows a service-oriented approach with the following components:

1. Controllers: Handle HTTP-specific logic and delegate business logic to services.
2. Services: Encapsulate business logic and can be reused across different parts of the application.
3. Models: Define the structure of data in MongoDB using Mongoose.
4. WebSocketService: Manages WebSocket connections, message broadcasting, and receipt handling.
5. RedisService: Manages caching using Redis.
6. EventBus: Decouples services by using an event-driven approach.

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js (>= 12.x)
• MongoDB
• Redis
• Docker (for running MongoDB and Redis in containers)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/anansi.git
   cd anansi

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Create a .env file in the root directory and configure the environment variables:

   PORT=4000
   WS_PORT=8080
   MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27021/notification_service
   JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
   REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6378

4. Using Docker

   If you prefer to run MongoDB and Redis using Docker, create a docker-compose.yml file in the root directory with the following content:

   Create a .env file to specify the Docker volume paths:

   MONGO_DATA=./data/mongo
   MONGO_DUMP=./data/dump
   REDIS_DATA=./data/redis

   Start the MongoDB and Redis containers:

   docker-compose up -d

5. Start the application:

   npm start

Usage

Endpoints

Authentication

• Register: POST /api/register

  • Request Body: { "username": "string", "password": "string" }
  • Response: { "success": true, "message": "User registered" }

• Login: POST /api/login

  • Request Body: { "username": "string", "password": "string" }
  • Response: { "success": true, "token": "jwt_token" }

Notifications

• Send Notification: POST /api/notify

  • Request Body: { "userId": "string", "message": "string" }
  • Response: { "success": true, "message": "Notification sent" }

• Fetch Notifications: GET /api/notifications/:userId

  • Response: [ { "id": "string", "message": "string", "status": "string", "read": "boolean" } ]

Postman Collection

You can find a Postman collection to test the API endpoints at the following link:

Anansi Postman Collection

Summary

Anansi focuses on providing real-time WebSocket notifications with support for user authentication and delivery/read receipts. The project is designed to be decoupled, with an emphasis on WebSocket functionality over overall API architecture.