ipv-core-front

This repository contains the source code for the frontend user interface of the GOV.UK One Login Identity Proofing and Verification (IPV) system. The IPV Core frontend is the first user-facing screen in the identity proving journey.

Related repositories

ipv-core-front works with the following IPV Core repositories:

• ipv-core-back - backend code
• ipv-core-tests - feature tests
• ipv-core-common-infra - utilities that automate IPV Core ancillary services
• ipv-stubs - test stubs for IPV Core dependencies (credential issuers)

Developing ipv-core-front

This guide explains how to:

• clone the repo and install the dependencies
• run ipv-core-front locally
• use pre-commit to verify your commits

Cloning and installing ipv-core-front

1. Clone this repository to your local machine:

https://github.com/govuk-one-login/ipv-core-front.git

1. Change into the ipv-core-front folder.
2. Run the following command to install the project dependencies:

npm install

Environment variables

This project uses the following environment variables:

Variable name	Description	Default value
API_BASE_URL	Specifies the base host of the backend API. It is used by the application to make requests to the backend services.	-
CONTACT_URL	URL of the GOV.UK One Login contact form.	https://home.account.gov.uk/contact-gov-uk-one-login
ENABLE_PREVIEW	Turns on the dev/all-templates route to preview individual pages.	development
EXTERNAL_WEBSITE_HOST	Sets the default host used by the application.	http://localhost:8080
NODE_ENV	Specifies the environment where the application will run, for example local.	-
PORT	Default port to run the web server on.	3000
SESSION_SECRET	The secret key used for encrypting and decrypting session data.	-
LANGUAGE_TOGGLE	Active Language Toggle into all pages	false

Running ipv-core-front locally

To run ipv-core-front locally:

1. Create a .env file based on .env.sample.
2. Run npm run build.
3. In your code editor, use a run configuration that starts src/app.js. Alternatively, you can run npm run start-dev.
4. To get live style updates, run npm run watch-sass.

Run npm run build again if changes are made to:

• the govuk-frontend library
• translations
• images

Analytics

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@govuk-one-login/frontend-analytics

Configuring core-back to work with a local core-front

You can use the dev-deploy tool to configure your core-back to work with a local core-front.

Using pre-commit to verify your commits

We use the pre-commit tool to identify issues before you commit your code. It uses Git hook scripts which you can configure in .pre-commit-config.yaml.

On running git commit, pre-commit Git hooks check for:

• formatting issues in JSON files
• end of file issues
• trailing whitespaces
• AWS credentials or private keys you might have added by accident
• AWS CloudFormation issues
• infrastructure issues - by running checkov
• secrets you might have added by accident - by running detect-secrets.

If any secrets detected are false positives, update the .secrets.baseline file by running detect-secrets scan > .secrets.baseline.

Committing after automatic changes

Pre-commit automatically fixes end of file issues and trailing whitespaces. If this happens, run git commit again to commit the changes.

Understanding issue outputs

If pre-commit detects an issue during a commit, it will produce an output similar to the following:

 git commit -a
check json...........................................(no files to check)Skipped
fix end of files.........................................................Passed
trim trailing whitespace.................................................Passed
detect aws credentials...................................................Passed
detect private key.......................................................Passed
AWS CloudFormation Linter................................................Failed
- hook id: cfn-python-lint
- exit code: 4
W3011 Both UpdateReplacePolicy and DeletionPolicy are needed to protect Resources/PublicHostedZone from deletion
core/deploy/dns-zones/template.yaml:20:3
Checkov..............................................(no files to check)Skipped
- hook id: checkov

Installing the dependencies for pre-commit

To use pre-commit locally you need to install some dependencies, using either:

• Python pip
• Homebrew

Using Python pip

Run the following:

sudo -H pip3 install checkov pre-commit cfn-lint

This should work across all platforms.

Using Homebrew

Run the following:

brew install pre-commit ;\
brew install cfn-lint ;\
brew install checkov

Configuring pre-commit

Once installed, run:

pre-commit install

Update the pre-commit plugins by running:

pre-commit autoupdate && pre-commit install

This command will install and configure the pre-commit Git hooks.

GitHub tools and workflows

GitHub CODEOWNERS

You can use a GitHub CODEOWNERS file to define individuals or teams that are responsible for code in a repository. GitHub automatically requests reviews from these code owners when someone opens a pull request that modifies the code they own.

You can find the CODEOWNERS file for ipv-core-front in the root.

Uploading assets to Amazon CloudFront

If you add a new MIME type to either the /assets or /public folders, you must also add it to the CloudFront function in that repository.

This is because there is a step in the secure-post-merge.yml GitHub workflow that pushes a ZIP archive of the /public and /assets folders to an Amazon S3 bucket. The archive is then decompressed and transferred to a separate bucket behind a CloudFront distribution, which is hosted at https://github.com/alphagov/di-ipv-core-common-infra/tree/main/cloudformation/upload-assets.