iNaturalistAPI

Our API is documented using the Swagger/OpenAPI 2.0 specification. Check out the Swagger UI documentation viewer at https://api.inaturalist.org/docs.

https://api.inaturalist.org

Setup

npm install
# Fill in vals to connect to Rails, Postgres, and elasticsearch
cp config_example.js config.js
# Run the node app on port 4000. NODE_ENV is required, so you'll need to set
# it here or elsewhere in your environment
NODE_ENV=development node app.js

Troubleshooting

If you use a Mac w/ an Apple processor but run into dependency build issues w/ mapnik, try this:

Uninstall the version of node listed in .nvmrc, e.g. nvm use 18 && nvm uninstall 20.15.1
Quit your terminal
Get info on your terminal app and check Open using Rosetta
Open your termainl
Clear the nvm cache: nvm cache clear
nvm install
Quit the terminal
Get info and uncheck Open using Rosetta
Open the terminal
npm install

In theory that will install an x86 version of node that should not have problems building dependencies that won't build with Apple's ARM processors.

Running Tests

If running iNaturalist services from Docker, make sure to run make services from the main app first (note that Elasticsearch may take a few seconds to start).

Run all: npm test Filter by pattern: NODE_ENV=test ./node_modules/mocha/bin/_mocha --recursive --fgrep observations

You can also add .only to a describe or it call to only run that test when you run npm test, e.g. it.only( "should only run this test" ).

Running Tests with Docker

You can run the tests with Docker Compose. All required services will be started by the docker-compose.test.yml compose file:

docker compose -f docker-compose.test.yml up -d

You can follow the tests execution in the logs:

docker logs -f api-test

The first time you run the compose file, a local docker image for the API service will be automatically built, from you local GIT checkout. But if later you do some code changes, or update your GIT checkout, you need to re-build the docker image with:

docker compose -f docker-compose.test.yml build

This compose build is using the test target of the Dockerfile.

ESLint

Please run ESLint to check for syntax formatting errors. To run ESLint, run: npm run eslint. Please address any syntax errors before submitting pull requests. ESLint will also run automatically via Github Actions on submitted pull requests along with tests.

All test failures and syntax errors must be resolved before pull requests before will be merged.

Updating Documentation

Edit lib/views/swagger_v*.yml.ejs

inaturalist/iNaturalistAPI