Code Review: Refactor Backend Codebase into Modular Structure

[benjaminsunliu]

Summary

Backend routes have been refactor to different units for easier maintainability.

• Extracted routes into the /routes directory.
• Added /models for database schemas.
• Updated server.js to act as an entry point.
• Tested all endpoints to ensure functionality remains intact.

Detailed Summary

This pull request includes significant updates to the backend of the application, adding new middleware, models, and routes to enhance authentication, user management, and team functionalities. The most important changes are summarized below:

Middleware Enhancements:

• Added authenticateToken middleware to verify JWT tokens and attach user information to the request object (backend/middleware/authenticateToken.js).
• Introduced isInstructor middleware to restrict access to instructor-specific routes (backend/middleware/isInstructor.js).

Model Additions:

• Created Rating model to store student ratings with fields for cooperation, conceptual contribution, practical contribution, work ethic, and comments (backend/models/rating.js).
• Added Student model to store student details including first name, last name, email, student ID, and phone number (backend/models/student.js).
• Defined Team model to manage team details including team name, instructor ID, and members (backend/models/team.js).
• Implemented User model with password hashing middleware to store user details and manage authentication (backend/models/user.js).

Route Implementations:

• Implemented authentication routes for user login and logout, generating and clearing JWT tokens (backend/routes/authentication.js).
• Created user registration route to handle account creation (backend/routes/createAccount.js).
• Added route for instructors to create teams, restricted by authenticateToken and isInstructor middleware (backend/routes/createTeam.js).
• Developed route to fetch teams based on user role, either as an instructor or student (backend/routes/get-teams.js).
• Added route for instructors to get ratings of their students (backend/routes/instructor-rating.js).
• Implemented password reset functionality with email notifications using nodemailer (backend/routes/reset-password.js).

Dependency Updates:

• Added nodemailer package to handle email notifications for password reset functionality (backend/package-lock.json, backend/package.json). [1] [2]

These changes collectively enhance the backend capabilities, providing robust user authentication, role-based access control, and comprehensive team and rating management functionalities.

[YehJordan]

The server.js is a lot more clean and less cluttered. It is now more readable with all the endpoints being put into their own file based on functionality. It makes it more maintainable at the same time. Good comments indicating which route is being used. Functionality seems to be maintained (nice)

Having the jwt secret key exposed in server.js, authenticateToken,js and authentication.js is a vulnerability to be considered.

Consider adding missing tests later on.

Overall, the server refactoring seems really good.