/task-management-api

Task-Management-API

Primary LanguageJavaScript

Task Management API

This is a RESTful API for a task management system built with Node.js and Express.

Features

  • Create, read, update, and delete tasks
  • Mark tasks as complete
  • Basic authentication
  • Input validation
  • Error handling

Prerequisites

  • Node.js (v14 or later)
  • npm (v6 or later)

Installation

  1. Clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/yourusername/task-management-api.git
cd task-management-api

  2. Install dependencies:

    npm install

Running the Application

To start the server, run:

npm start

The server will start on port 3000 (or the port specified in the PORT environment variable).

API Endpoints

  • GET /tasks: Retrieve all tasks
  • GET /tasks/{id}: Retrieve a specific task by ID
  • POST /tasks: Create a new task
  • PUT /tasks/{id}: Update an existing task
  • DELETE /tasks/{id}: Delete a task
  • PATCH /tasks/{id}/complete: Mark a task as complete

Authentication

All endpoints require authentication. Include the following header in your requests:

X-API-Key: your-secret-api-key

Testing

To run the unit tests, use the following command:

npm test

Design Decisions and Assumptions

  1. In-memory data store: For simplicity, I used an in-memory data store. In a production environment, this should be replaced with a persistent database.

  2. Authentication: I implemented a basic API key authentication. In a real-world scenario, this should be replaced with a more robust authentication system (e.g., JWT).

  3. Error handling: I implemented basic error handling for input validation and not found errors. This can be extended to handle more specific error cases.

  4. Date handling: I assumed that dates are provided in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD).

  5. Status enum: I limited the task status to three values: "pending", "in_progress", and "completed".

  6. ID generation: I used UUID v4 for generating unique task IDs.

  7. Timestamps: Created_at and updated_at timestamps are automatically managed by the API.

Future Improvements

  1. Implement pagination for the GET /tasks endpoint
  2. Add user management and multi-user support
  3. Implement more comprehensive input validation and sanitization
  4. Add logging for better debugging and monitoring
  5. Implement rate limiting to prevent abuse
  6. Add OpenAPI/Swagger documentation for better API discoverability