microfeedback-core

Core library for building microfeedback backends.

What is a microfeedback backend?

In short: an easily-deployable HTTP microservice for collecting user feedback about your apps.

Installation

Requires Node>=8.

npm install microfeedback-core --save

Usage

The microfeedback function is the only public API. It takes a backend function which contains the code to handle user feedback (e.g. post a GitHub issue, send an email) sent from a client. The second argument, attributes, is an Object that describes the backend (e.g. name, version, description).

The first argument to the backend function contains the input which will contain--at a minimum--an entry named body with the feedback content.

If the PERSPECTIVE_API_KEY environment variable is set, the first argument will contain a perspective Object with information returned from the Perspective API.

If the AKISMET_API_KEY environment variable is set, input will be checked with the Akismet API. If spam is detected, an error response will be returned. If the ALLOW_SPAM environment variable is set, an error response will not be returned and the first argument to the backend will contain an akismet Object of the form {spam: Boolean}.

Perspective and Akismet support can be disabled by setting PERSPECTIVE_ENABLED=false and AKISMET_ENABLED=false in the environment.

The backend function also receives the request (req) and response (res) objects. See the node http docs for more information about these objects.

The microfeedback function returns a micro request handler.

// index.js
const { createError } = require('micro');
const microfeedback = require('microfeedback');
const sendEmail = require('./email-library');
 
const EmailBackend = async ({input, perspective, akismet}, req, res) => {
  const {name, body} = input;
  const toxicity = perspective ? perspective.toxicity : null;
  const email = process.env.FEEDBACK_EMAIL;  // where to receive feedback
  const subject = '[microfeedback] Feedback posted' + name ? `by ${name}` : '';
  const content = `${name} posted feedback on your app:
 
${body}
 
${toxicity ? `Toxicity rating: ${toxicity}` : ''}
 
Cheers,
The microfeedback Robot`;
  try {
    const result = await sendEmail(email, {subject, content});
    return { status: result.status };
  } catch (err) {
    throw createError(400, 'Could not send email', err);
  }
};
 
module.exports = microfeedback(EmailBackend, {
  name: 'email',
  version: '1.0.0',
});

The service can then be run with the micro CLI via npm start.

{
  "name": "microfeedback-email",
  "dependencies": {
    "micro": "x.y.z",
    "microfeedback-core": "x.y.z"
  },
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "micro"
  }
}

npm start

Backends

• microfeedback-github

Development

• Fork and clone this repo. cd into the project directory.
• npm install
• To run tests: npm test
• To run the example server with auto-reloading: npm run dev

Debugging in tests with iron-node

Add debugger statements, then run the following:

npm install -i iron-node
npm run test:debug

License

MIT Licensed.