meta-api

meta-api is an API that I will be using for varying purposes, e.g. an endpoint that I can use for any Slack apps that I create, content for a website that I might build, etc. Because I'll be using it for perhaps many different things, it's sort of an API for other more single-purpose APIs. It is hosted on Heroku at https://raghav-meta-api.herokuapp.com !

Deployment

meta-api was deployed on Heroku (Free Tier) using the GitHub Deployment method, Automatic Deploys on push to master enabled. NOTE: Starting November 28, 2022, free Heroku Dynos, free Heroku Postgres, and free Heroku Data for Redis® will no longer be available. As such the Heroku deployment has been removed.

Background

A little backstory: My friend circle uses Slack as our group chat (we love channels, threads, and customizations). I wanted to make a Slack app, but I needed to create and host REST endpoints for the the app to send requests to. The app itself is quite small (in theory), so I didn't exactly want to waste a whole server for just one app. I decided to make it abstract enough so that in the future, if I wanted to build more Slack apps, we could simply update this project, without having to host another server to have to query. Also I aim to use this server and expose more endpoints for other projects (perhaps as a CMS for a personal website).

Current APIs

• Slack App:

  • Hello:

    • Description: A dummy app that echoes the name of the command used in the POST request along with whatever args were passed with the request
    • Endpoints:
      • /slack/apps/hello/fakeCommand

  • Groupy:

    • Description: Groupy manages user groups, a feature that doesn't exist on Slack's free tier! (Note: Didn't think this functionality should need to be able to access Slack, leaving the responsibility of providing the proper arguments to the app which hits this endpoint, i.e., the Slack app)
    • Endpoints:
      • /slack/apps/groupy/create : Needs "TeamId", "GroupName", and "Users"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/add-to: Needs "TeamId", "GroupName", and "Users"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/remove-from: Needs "TeamId", "GroupName", and "Users"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/list-members: Needs "TeamId", "GroupName"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/list: Needs "TeamId"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/delete: Needs "TeamId", "GroupName"
      • /slack/apps/groupy/tag-group: Needs "TeamId", "GroupName"
    • Misc:
      • To store this information we use MongoDB's Atlas, and to run and test this feature locally one needs only to have a local Mongo instance running on the default port.

Notes

• Ensure local Mongo instance is up and running on port 27017 (If I want to test groupy slack app features locally)

• Run with Makefile: make run