Improving setup flow for sync-endpoint (to a newcomer)

You might be a newbie in the ODK-X community just like i am, and you wondering what “Improving setup flow for sync-endpoint” is all about.

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The community produces a number of softwares in the process of managing data. Among the any is the ODK-X Sync Endpoint which is a server that enables data to replicated between mobile devices. It communicates with your ODK-X Android applications to synchronise your data and application files. Depending on your needs, it can either be installed in a cloud-based virtual machine, or on your own infrastructure ie manually using Docker or Swarm Mode.

Sync-endpoint runs as a collection of docker containers on a single server instance using a microserverices architecture, and provides an https api where the mobile devices can pull new configurations and upload their data. Hence, setting this environment is complicated, requiring the provisioning of valid certificates for https, setting up of a local database, and selection of several important configuration parameters for the install, a like 14 step process.

Devs realised that this might be overwhelming to some individuals and they setup a quick script that individuals just run and setup everything thought filling Command Line Prompts. However, this script was like created 2 years back and needs a little bit of modification. Among what was spotted out was;

• Improve its robustness with input validation and the use of python type annotations. ✅ This majorly is to emphasise the validation of user input and addition of data types of variables in the script.
• Internationalise it to allow support for multiple locales and translations. This is to ensure that the script can support more than one languages that is the user can choose to run it in any language he/she desires 🚫
• Add error reporting and helpful error messages that can suggest fixes to common problems detected in the attempted configuration.🚫
• Add automated tests for the configurations generated by the setup script to catch future regressions.⌛
• Improve the ergonomics and UX of the setup script with a way to save progress while configuring. This is to speedup the process of running the server the second, third or nth time. ✅