How to contribute to utopian V2, the complete tutorial

in utopian-io •  6 years ago  (edited)

Hi everyone!
I suppose our SteemFest 3 presentation piqued your curiosity. You've also discovered that we plan to release the V2 in April 2019. So how about you help us release it faster?

Utopian updates

What does Utopian need?

Am I suited for this?

If you want to help us we are looking for some experienced developers to do some tasks posted as issues on GitHub. If you're are beginner it will probably be a little difficult for you.

What is the technology stack?

  • Database: MongoDB
  • Backend: NodeJS 10, Mongoose, HapiJS, Joi, Ramda, mocha, chai
  • Frontend: NodeJS 10, Quasar Framework, jest
  • Monorepo with lerna, packages manager with yarn
  • Development process: Kanban, Git flow, Jira, Pull Requests

Are you up to the task? Let's find out what you can do to help us.

Give me some work!

Finding my first task

The first thing you need to do is check the public project board. Any task that is in the TODO column and not assigned is ready for development and waiting for someone. Check the different user stories available, look at the acceptance criteria and the design.
If no one does them, someone from the core team will work on them at some point but they are designed to be done by you, utopian supporters/contributors/followers. Once your work is done, you'll be able to write an article about it and get a nice utopian upvote! Take the time to read the LICENSE file too ;)
You've picked one?

Getting approved

There is one last final step before you can actually start developing, it's being picked by me :p.
Go to the utopian discord and DM @gregory[mod] with the following message:

Hi, I would like to start working on the task GITHUB_ISSUE_LINK.
A little bit about me: a short description of your experience as a developer
and your github repo if you have one, it's really better if you have one

You will then join a dedicated discord channel and meet your fellow collaborators. Please read the pinned messages of the channel before doing anything else. There are a few guidelines to help you code and how the project is structured.
@icaro, @nothingismagick and me will be here to help you if you ever need it.

I'm doing this final selection step to be sure I won't spend my time doing PR reviews.

Let's get to work!

Setup the development environment as an external contributor

I'm going to walk you through all the necessary steps so you can start working on your task.

Getting the code

You need to install first:

Make sure everything is OK

gregory@Laptop:~$ node --version
v10.13.0
gregory@Laptop:~$ lerna --version
3.4.0
gregory@Laptop:~$ yarn --version
1.9.4
gregory@Laptop:~$ git --version
git version 2.17.1

Then fork the repository v2.utopian.io and clone your repo into your favorite development folder.
Now if everything is have been done correctly simply run inside the root directory

lerna bootstrap

This will install every packages. Almost done? Well there are still a few things to setup.

NB: if for some reason something were wrong, you can run yarn separately in the api, auth and client package.

Configuring external services

The API

copy the .env.example file to .env

The database

The first thing you need to do is setup a mongo database. You can either install one locally or use an external provider like mLab. This is what we are using for the development of the website. That way, all of us use the same database and we know if some features that change the models break each other code. Once you're done, you can update the .env. You should have something like this:

MONGODB_URI=mongodb://user:password@hostname:port/database

The GitHub authentication app

For now, utopian use GitHub as a social provider to create an account or to sign in. We will add LinkedIn and Google later too but that's another story.
Go to your GitHub Developper account and click on Register a new application. Fill the form and get your APP ID and SECRET.

Once you're done, you can update the .env. You should have something like this:

GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=92d8b2d965f0d0e7b5ba
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET=utopianisawesome

JWT Secret

You can type whatever you want. The application use JWT token to manage the authentication inside the app. This secret will be used to sign and verify the access and refresh tokens. But for development purposes, no need to have a strong key.

SteemConnect App & Encryption Key

For now, most of the tasks (and probably all them) won't need the Steem blockchain. So it's not needed for the development. But if you want to have the complete setup, you can create your SteemConnect App. This App will be used in utopian to publish content on the blockchain but not exactly like most applications are currently doing it. Further explanations will be provided later in our FAQ.

OK you're all set for the API, let's check the Auth app.

The Auth app

Utopian will have many services in the future and we want one central point for authentication. This app will also allow newcomers to create a free steem account. @icaro is working actively on it!

Copy the .env.example file to .env like for the API project.
You can leave the default values and add your GitHub OAuth App ID.
You should have something like this:

GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=92d8b2d965f0d0e7b5ba

The Client App

Everything you need have been previously created. You just need to add the different keys. Your file should then look like this if you've left the default settings:

UTOPIAN_API='"http://localhost:5000"'
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID='"92d8b2d965f0d0e7b5ba"'
STEEMCONNECT_CLIENT_ID='""' // Not needed for now
UTOPIAN_DOMAIN='"http://localhost:8080"'
AUTH_DOMAIN='"http://localhost:8081"'

Notice the single and double quotes.

And that's it for now. This tutorial might evolve as development progresses because we will need more external services.

What's next?

As announced during the SteemFest 3, I will publish a series of tasks on GitHub on Tuesday, Nov 13th. Those tasks will concern the article module. While you will be working on this, the core team will continue its work on fundamental features needed in the app. The more we progress, the more we will be able to allow you to contribute on all the other modules.

If you want a head start, don't wait for Tuesday and start reading the amazing documentation of the Quasar framework.

Good luck to all of you, and I hope you help us release Utopian V2 before April 2019 :D!

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This post has received a 20.00% upvote from @jmiller05!

You got a 4.21% upvote from @oceanwhale courtesy of @sweetpee! Earn 100% earning payout by delegating SP to @oceanwhale. Visit www.OceanWhaleBot.com for details!

Thanks Gregory. I wanted to add that Utopian will offer interesting bounties to incentivise contributors from our community and beyond to join the development of the platform. I am 100% sure with the support of the community Utopian is going to be here sooner than what we anticipated.

Great job!

Cool stuff. Honestly, I really want to see the project website up and running before April. I'll share this across many dev channels that I know.