Good Relay

A simple example node backend that demonstrates how to hit a 3rd party API without exposing your API key in your frontend code.

Note the goodreads API returns XML which is tricky to work with. To see a more simple verison of this, checkout the weather-json-example branch. To use that branch you'll need a free API key from Open Weather Map. There is no front-end for it, so you need to interact with it via curl or Postman. The api url is localhost:3000/onecall?lat={some latitidue}&lon={some longtitude}.

Usage

Prerequisites

You need nodejs installed: https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Initialise the App

To get started git clone this repo (choose one depending on whether you prefer https or ssh - pick the first one if you're not sure):

git clone https://github.com/JacksonBates/example-goodreads-api-relay.git

or

git clone git@github.com:JacksonBates/example-goodreads-api-relay.git

Then cd into the new directory:

cd example-goodreads-api-relay

Now install dependancies:

npm i

You need to create your own .env file for your key:

cp .env.example .env

Get your goodreads api keys from Goodreads api Then open the new .env file and paste your keys in the correct spot.

Example:

GOODREADS_API_KEY=AABBCCDDEEFF00112233445566778899

Now run the server:

node app.js

In the browser, navigate to localhost:3000 to confirm the server is running. You should see a simple Hello World!

What next?

Now read the app.js file thoroughly.

I've commented the code heavily to help you understand what is going on if you haven't seen node / express much before.

Test the API relay

Use Postman to test the API.

Set Postman to send a Get request and paste this in the url: localhost:3000/api/search?q=enders game

Postman will show you the JSON response below.

How do you use this in your front end?

This simple app is listening for get requests at /api/search, so interact with it in your front end app the way you have been previously with the original api.

This is only configured to handle search queries - if you want to use other Goodreads API endpoints / methods, you'll need to think about how you implement them yourself!

Goodreads search

See more options for searching at Goodreads docs

Hosting

You can't deploy your frontend and still have this on localhost - obviously you need to deploy this, too.

I recommend Heroku.