seeds.exs ... tidy/improve initialising data into auth db

[nelsonic]

The "on-boarding" for the auth App suuuuuuuuucks! 😢

while attempting to fly deploy the auth app to Fly.io we noted that the seeds.exs file was not being executed: #172 (comment) this means there is no app created in the DB:

so the home page does not even render. 💔

Re-reading the /priv/repo/seeds.exs file I can see the intent ...
but I'm embarrassed by how messy it is and I apologise to anyone who has attempted to read/grok it ... 🤦‍♂️
100% mea culpa! Didn't think the seeds.exs code was going to be looked at very often so didn't invest enough time in it. ⏳

Related to: "Updated instructions needed ..." #157, "More clarity ..." #149 and "How to resolve auth_plug dependency #170

Possible approaches to solve this

My initial assessment is that we can approach solving this in (at least) 4 different ways, in order of increasing effort/time:

1. Re-org & add comments to the seeds.exs file which is currently only 147 lines of code.

The issue with this first approach, as noted in #172 (comment) is that the /priv/repo/seeds.exs` file does not appear to be available on Fly.io once the release is created/compiled.

2. Re-write it from scratch with a fresh pair of eyes and move it to /lib where it will be executable by the mix release
3. Create something new that outputs raw SQL that we can run directly on the DB
   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36770956/how-can-i-see-the-raw-sql-generated-for-an-ecto-query
   Ecto.Adapters.SQL.to_sql/3
4. Create a "Setup & Status" wizard/screen that informs the superadmin of the status of their auth instance.
   i. Creates the "default" app if it does not already exist. This will only happen once. >> INIT: Auth App Deployment Init Page [MVP] #176
   ii. Displays the AUTH_API_KEY for the default app so it can be exported as an environment variable
   iii. Once the AUTH_API_KEY environment variable is set, display this detail on the "status" page.
   iv. Check all the other environment variables are defined so that the person setting up the auth app knows the status.

This 4^th Option/approach would help with the auth_plug dependency #170

Todo

• Discuss & Decide which approach we are going to take to fixing the seeds.exs problem in both the short-term and longer term.

• Implement the chosen solution.

  • Seeding data should be idempodent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence#Computer_science_meaning (obvs).

• Test it on localhost and Heroku

• Test by deploying to Fly.io ... Deploy Auth to Fly.io PROD #172

Note: I've applied priority-1 and BLOCKED to this because it is currently blocking deployment to Fly.io 🔥
I've also created tech-debt label in this repo and proposed we add it to the labels repo: dwyl/labels#101

[th0mas]

I'm in favour of option two. Some comments I have to make this easier on others setting up the app:

1. I don't like being having to re-start the application to set an AUTH_API_KEY - if we can aim for "1-click" deploy, we should.
   i. Regarding this, it might be worth adding a new initialisation function to AuthPlug that can take a signing key as a parameter, not as an environment variable. This shouldn't be a breaking change, as the default would still be to rely on the environment variable for configuration.
2. We could add a line to the Auth.Release.migrate/0 function that checks to see if the default app is initialised, this way it would be transparent to the person deploying the application.
   i. This would need some further discussion as we would need to make it clear to the person deploying how to change the default initialisation values (e.g. the role names) if they wanted

[nelsonic]

Great suggestions. Totally agree. 🙌
If you have time to help with this, please do. (Check your Signal messages ...) 🙏

[nelsonic]

Going to try and make a start on this. 🤞 ⏳

[nelsonic]

Made an attempt to move seeds.exs to init.ex and added a few tests+docs. Please see: #175 (Thanks!)

[SimonLab]

PR #175 is now merged into main

[nelsonic]

@SimonLab thanks for reviewing/merging. 🙌

With lib/auth/init/init.ex now available, I've been trying to run it in lib/auth/release.ex but cannot get past the error:

** (RuntimeError) could not lookup Ecto repo Auth.Repo because it was not started or it does not exist

As reported in: #172 (comment)

So rather than banging my head against the wall (I've spent hours googling and reading forum/blog posts ...) 🤦‍♂️
I'm going got build a "status" page as per Option 4 in the OP above. ⬆️
Haven't quite figured out everything that is required for this ... but will take a look at it tonight. 🤞

[nelsonic]

Tested the new init.ex (invoked by seeds.exs) script on Fly.io: #176 (comment) https://authprod.fly.dev/init

Works as expected. ✅
Closing.