Taller's Chat Test

A chat application that intends to beat Slack,
but is humble enough to understand this is never going to happen.

How will it work

The purpose of this test is to help us understand your technical proficiency and decision making process. You will install this application, check it out, and once it's up-and-running we will ask you to develop a couple of new features or apply some bug fixes.

What will you need

This application consists of a Drupal 8 backend providing a GraphQL API which is consumed by Apollo on a Next.js based React application.

We do not expect you to have knowledge on all of these tools, but you'll probably need to study one or another to get some tasks done.

Have a look at STACK.md for more information on the technologies used.

Requirements

To run it locally, you must have:

• Docker

• Docker Compose

• Make

• MacOS users, follow this post to configure NFS first.

Getting started

1. Clone this repository

You must git clone this project and re-publish it on your own GitHub account. Do not fork this repository; it would make it easy for other candidates to copy your solutions.

2. Install & Run

This project relies on docker to setup the development environment and there are already some scripts available for common tasks on the Makefile at the root. Follow these steps to get started:

Build the containers 🔨

make run

MacOS users use:

make run-macos

Grab a coffee ☕

Big one. This takes a while.

Don't have SSD? Take two coffees.

See Drupal running 💧

Access http://localhost

Credentials
Username: admin
Password: password

Start Next.js application 🔥

make in
cd next
yarn dev

We use yarn instead of npm. This is not necessary, but recommended.

Access http://localhost:3000 🎉

So far you should be able to login and add a couple of messages:

]

3. Have a look around

It is important that you have the development environment operational before we start. So take the time and study how things work on the application, maybe try to find some bugs on your own. If you have any trouble, please open an issue on this repository and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

4. Let the games begin

You will be provided with a board of tasks, from which you'll choose some to resolve. Maybe we'll ask you to resolve some specific ones too. Some will be simpler, some more advanced, and each of them will involve a different set of technologies. It's ok if you choose to work on tasks with technologies you are more confident about, but we would very much appreciate seeing how you learn and apply new things on the way.

5. Show us the code

Each task you solve shall be developed in it's own branch. At the end, you must create a pull-request against your own repository for each task you worked on - even if incomplete - so that we can proceed with the evaluation of your technical test and provide you feedback.

Available commands

Makefile

Anytime you need, you can use these available Make commands:

Command	Description
make run	Executes and enters the container
make in	Enters the active container
make mysql	Access MySQL instance used by Drupal
make stop	Stops all containers
make clean	Removes all containers
make build	Rebuild the app image

Next.js

The following commands are available on the Next.js React application:

Command	Description
yarn dev	Start the application in development mode
yarn build	Build the application for production
yarn start	Start the application in production mode
yarn build:start	Build and start for production (good for CI)
yarn lint	Runs ESLint on your files
yarn test:unit	Runs Jest automated tests
yarn test:unit:watch	Runs Jest automated tests in watch mode
yarn run:prepush	Runs all tasks necessary for code-quality assurance

Troubleshooting

Fresh install

To perform a fresh install, we recommend you...

make stop & make clean

... to erase existing containers, then

rm drupal/sites/default/settings.local.php

... to revert Drupal to it's initial setup state. Then you can start installation from step 2 once again.

Backup database

In case something goes wrong with the installation steps, you can use the initial-database.sql file as a mean to enforce initial setup as expected. To use it, run the following inside the container:

cd drupal
drush sql-drop                        # will clean the current database
drush sqlc < ../initial-database.sql  # will import the backup database

Disclaimer

This project is not a product, will never be, will not go into production, and has no intention to serve any purpose other than to be a constrained but near-real-world application used to test candidates to a development position at Taller.