PasswordFlow

What is included in this POC

login essentials : signup, signin, reset_password, update_password, update_email
verified by email : any critical action is verified by email.
email sending with Swoosh
email templating with eex (as phoenix templates)
email preview : instead of really sending them to a recipient, send it to RAM

Email preview

Swoosh provide a way to send mail to RAM rather than to a mail server. It's useful for developing the mail template without destroying API credits.

To do so, in mix config.exs, you just have to do :

config :password_flow, PasswordFlow.Mailer,
  adapter: Swoosh.Adapters.Local
config :swoosh, serve_mailbox: true, preview_port: 4001

and in router :

if Mix.env == :dev do
  scope "/dev" do
    pipe_through [:browser]

    forward "/mailbox", Plug.Swoosh.MailboxPreview
  end
end

As a final note, using the runtime.exs config file, we would be able to swich to any Adapter without compiling.

Master template

I created a layout/email.html.eex file. It's the master email template which would be use to style all the emails.

Invokation

It's fairly simple, see user_notifier.ex.

new()
  |> to(to)
  |> from("an-email@yopmail.com")
  |> reply_to("an-email@yopmail.com")
  |> subject("Réinitialiser votre mot de passe")
  |> put_view(PasswordFlowWeb.UserResetPasswordView)
  |> render_body("email_reset_instructions.html", %{ user: user, url: url})
  |> Mailer.deliver()

Sync or Async

You can choose if you want the email to be part of the calling process or to be run inside a Task. See PasswordFlow.Mailer in mailer.ex (just using a Task, really).

Opinion

On a personnal note, I found Swoosh super simple to use and everything was working in minutes. Phoenix.Swoosh (what brings the eex rendering) is ok but what disturbs me is that it makes the lib/ dependant on the web/ (needs views and template) and on Phoenix code. But pragmatically, I guess it's ok since it does not make the lib dependent on having a running phoenix server : it just need the code (proved by sending mail through iex while phoenix server was off).

Test it on your machine

To start your Phoenix server:

Install dependencies with mix deps.get
Create and migrate your database with mix ecto.setup
Install Node.js dependencies with yarn install inside the assets directory
Start Phoenix endpoint with mix phx.server and add some steroids with iex -S mix phx.server to repl into it.

Now you can visit localhost:4000 from your browser.

Ready to run in production? Please check our deployment guides.

NoBrainSkull/poc-phoenix-auth