Easy-Consult is a lawyer appointment scheduling app that allows clients to book appointments with lawyers. This document provides details about the REST API endpoints used to interact with the Easy-Consult flutter app.Description outlines the major endpoints and features of a Lawyer Appointment API, focusing on user management, lawyer specializations, appointment scheduling, authentication, authorization, error handling, logging, and testing.

• Features
• Commands
• Environment Variables
• Project Structure
• API Documentation
• Error Handling
• Validation
• Authentication
• Authorization
• Logging
• Custom Mongoose Plugins
• Linting

• NoSQL database: MongoDB object data modeling using Mongoose
• Authentication and authorization: using passport
• Validation: request data validation using Joi
• Logging: using winston and morgan
• Testing: unit and integration tests using Jest
• Error handling: centralized error handling mechanism
• Dependency management: with Yarn
• Environment variables: using dotenv and cross-env
• Security: set security HTTP headers using helmet
• Santizing: sanitize request data against xss and query injection
• CORS: Cross-Origin Resource-Sharing enabled using cors
• Compression: gzip compression with compression
• Linting: with ESLint and Prettier
• Editor config: consistent editor configuration using EditorConfig

Running locally:

yarn dev

Running in production:

yarn start

Testing:

# run all tests
yarn test

# run all tests in watch mode
yarn test:watch

# run test coverage
yarn coverage

Linting:

# run ESLint
yarn lint

# fix ESLint errors
yarn lint:fix

# run prettier
yarn prettier

# fix prettier errors
yarn prettier:fix

The environment variables can be found and modified in the .env file. They come with these default values:

# Port number
PORT=3000

# URL of the Mongo DB
MONGODB_URL=

# JWT
# JWT secret key
JWT_SECRET=thisisasamplesecret
# Number of minutes after which an access token expires
JWT_ACCESS_EXPIRATION_MINUTES=30
# Number of days after which a refresh token expires
JWT_REFRESH_EXPIRATION_DAYS=30

# SMTP configuration options for the email service
SMTP_HOST=email-server
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USERNAME=email-server-username
SMTP_PASSWORD=email-server-password
[email protected]

src\
 |--config\         # Environment variables and configuration related things
 |--controllers\    # Route controllers (controller layer)
 |--docs\           # Swagger files
 |--middlewares\    # Custom express middlewares
 |--models\         # Mongoose models (data layer)
 |--routes\         # Routes
 |--services\       # Business logic (service layer)
 |--utils\          # Utility classes and functions
 |--validations\    # Request data validation schemas
 |--app.js          # Express app
 |--index.js        # App entry point

List of available routes:

• POST /auth/register
  • Description: Register a new user.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/login
  • Description: Login with credentials to obtain access tokens.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/logout
  • Description: Logout the currently authenticated user.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/refresh-tokens
  • Description: Refresh expired access tokens using refresh token.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/forgot-password
  • Description: Initiate the password reset process by email.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/reset-password
  • Description: Reset user password after receiving reset token.
  • Middleware: None
• POST /auth/verify-email
  • Description: Verify user's email after registration.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

• POST /users/
  • Description: Create a new user.
  • Middleware: Manage Users
• GET /users/
  • Description: Get all users.
  • Middleware: Get Users
• GET /users/:userId
  • Description: Get a specific user by ID.
  • Middleware: Get Users
• DELETE /users/:userId
  • Description: Delete a user by ID.
  • Middleware: Manage Users
• PATCH /users/update-profile
  • Description: Update user profile information.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• POST /users/save-fcm-token
  • Description: Save Firebase Cloud Messaging token for push notifications.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

• POST /lawyer-specializations/
  • Description: Create a new specialization.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyer-specializations/
  • Description: Get all specializations.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyer-specializations/search
  • Description: Search for specializations.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

• GET /lawyers/specializations/:specializationId
  • Description: Get lawyers by specialization ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyers/specializations/:specializationId/search
  • Description: Search lawyers within a specialization by name.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyers/search
  • Description: Search lawyers by name.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyers/popular
  • Description: Get popular lawyers.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /lawyers/:lawyerId/availability
  • Description: Get availability schedule of a lawyer.
  • Middleware: None

• POST /services/
  • Description: Create a new service package.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /services/
  • Description: Get all service packages.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /services/:packageId
  • Description: Get a service package by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• PUT /services/:packageId
  • Description: Update a service package by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• DELETE /services/:packageId
  • Description: Delete a service package by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

• POST /reviews/
  • Description: Create a new review.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /reviews/
  • Description: Get all reviews.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /reviews/:id
  • Description: Get a review by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• PATCH /reviews/:id
  • Description: Update a review by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• DELETE /reviews/:id
  • Description: Delete a review by ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /reviews/lawyer/:id
  • Description: Get reviews of a lawyer by lawyer ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

• POST /appointments/
  • Description: Create a new appointment.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/
  • Description: Get all appointments.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/lawyer/:lawyerId
  • Description: Get appointments of a lawyer by lawyer ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/user/:userId
  • Description: Get appointments of a user by user ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/happening-today/user/:userId
  • Description: Get appointments happening today for a user by user ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/:appointmentId
  • Description: Get a specific appointment by appointment ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• POST /appointments/:appointmentId/cancel
  • Description: Cancel a specific appointment by appointment ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• POST /appointments/:appointmentId/confirm
  • Description: Confirm a specific appointment by appointment ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• POST /appointments/:appointmentId/report-issue
  • Description: Report an issue with a specific appointment by appointment ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User
• GET /appointments/issues
  • Description: Get all reported issues with appointments.
  • Middleware: Admin User
• DELETE /appointments/issues/:issueId
  • Description: Delete a reported issue by issue ID.
  • Middleware: Authenticated User

The app has a centralized error handling mechanism.

Controllers should try to catch the errors and forward them to the error handling middleware (by calling next(error)). For convenience, you can also wrap the controller inside the catchAsync utility wrapper, which forwards the error.

const catchAsync = require('../utils/catchAsync');

const controller = catchAsync(async (req, res) => {
  // this error will be forwarded to the error handling middleware
  throw new Error('Something wrong happened');
});

The error handling middleware sends an error response, which has the following format:

{
  "code": 404,
  "message": "Not found"
}

When running in development mode, the error response also contains the error stack.

The app has a utility ApiError class to which you can attach a response code and a message, and then throw it from anywhere (catchAsync will catch it).

For example, if you are trying to get a user from the DB who is not found, and you want to send a 404 error, the code should look something like:

const httpStatus = require('http-status');
const ApiError = require('../utils/ApiError');
const User = require('../models/User');

const getUser = async (userId) => {
  const user = await User.findById(userId);
  if (!user) {
    throw new ApiError(httpStatus.NOT_FOUND, 'User not found');
  }
};

Request data is validated using Joi. Check the documentation for more details on how to write Joi validation schemas.

The validation schemas are defined in the src/validations directory and are used in the routes by providing them as parameters to the validate middleware.

const express = require('express');
const validate = require('../../middlewares/validate');
const userValidation = require('../../validations/user.validation');
const userController = require('../../controllers/user.controller');

const router = express.Router();

router.post('/users', validate(userValidation.createUser), userController.createUser);

To require authentication for certain routes, you can use the auth middleware.

const express = require('express');
const auth = require('../../middlewares/auth');
const userController = require('../../controllers/user.controller');

const router = express.Router();

router.post('/users', auth(), userController.createUser);

These routes require a valid JWT access token in the Authorization request header using the Bearer schema. If the request does not contain a valid access token, an Unauthorized (401) error is thrown.

Generating Access Tokens:

An access token can be generated by making a successful call to the register (POST /v1/auth/register) or login (POST /v1/auth/login) endpoints. The response of these endpoints also contains refresh tokens (explained below).

An access token is valid for 30 minutes. You can modify this expiration time by changing the JWT_ACCESS_EXPIRATION_MINUTES environment variable in the .env file.

Refreshing Access Tokens:

After the access token expires, a new access token can be generated, by making a call to the refresh token endpoint (POST /v1/auth/refresh-tokens) and sending along a valid refresh token in the request body. This call returns a new access token and a new refresh token.

A refresh token is valid for 30 days. You can modify this expiration time by changing the JWT_REFRESH_EXPIRATION_DAYS environment variable in the .env file.

The auth middleware can also be used to require certain rights/permissions to access a route.

const express = require('express');
const auth = require('../../middlewares/auth');
const userController = require('../../controllers/user.controller');

const router = express.Router();

router.post('/users', auth('manageUsers'), userController.createUser);

In the example above, an authenticated user can access this route only if that user has the manageUsers permission.

The permissions are role-based. You can view the permissions/rights of each role in the src/config/roles.js file.

If the user making the request does not have the required permissions to access this route, a Forbidden (403) error is thrown.

Import the logger from src/config/logger.js. It is using the Winston logging library.

Logging should be done according to the following severity levels (ascending order from most important to least important):

const logger = require('<path to src>/config/logger');

logger.error('message'); // level 0
logger.warn('message'); // level 1
logger.info('message'); // level 2
logger.http('message'); // level 3
logger.verbose('message'); // level 4
logger.debug('message'); // level 5

In development mode, log messages of all severity levels will be printed to the console.

In production mode, only info, warn, and error logs will be printed to the console.
It is up to the server (or process manager) to actually read them from the console and store them in log files.\

Note: API request information (request url, response code, timestamp, etc.) are also automatically logged (using morgan).

The app also contains 2 custom mongoose plugins that you can attach to any mongoose model schema. You can find the plugins in src/models/plugins.

const mongoose = require('mongoose');
const { toJSON, paginate } = require('./plugins');

const userSchema = mongoose.Schema(
  {
    /* schema definition here */
  },
  { timestamps: true }
);

userSchema.plugin(toJSON);
userSchema.plugin(paginate);

const User = mongoose.model('User', userSchema);

The toJSON plugin applies the following changes in the toJSON transform call:

• removes __v, createdAt, updatedAt, and any schema path that has private: true
• replaces _id with id

The paginate plugin adds the paginate static method to the mongoose schema.

Adding this plugin to the User model schema will allow you to do the following:

const queryUsers = async (filter, options) => {
  const users = await User.paginate(filter, options);
  return users;
};

The filter param is a regular mongo filter.

The options param can have the following (optional) fields:

const options = {
  sortBy: 'name:desc', // sort order
  limit: 5, // maximum results per page
  page: 2, // page number
};

The plugin also supports sorting by multiple criteria (separated by a comma): sortBy: name:desc,role:asc

The paginate method returns a Promise, which fulfills with an object having the following properties:

{
  "results": [],
  "page": 2,
  "limit": 5,
  "totalPages": 10,
  "totalResults": 48
}

Linting is done using ESLint and Prettier.

In this app, ESLint is configured to follow the Airbnb JavaScript style guide with some modifications. It also extends eslint-config-prettier to turn off all rules that are unnecessary or might conflict with Prettier.

To modify the ESLint configuration, update the .eslintrc.json file. To modify the Prettier configuration, update the .prettierrc.json file.

To prevent a certain file or directory from being linted, add it to .eslintignore and .prettierignore.

To maintain a consistent coding style across different IDEs, the project contains .editorconfig

MIT