Zerobase Notification System

This repo contains the Firebase Functions required to operate the Zerobase notification system.

When the tracing system identifies users who need to be instructed to take actions (shelter in place, get tested, etc.) it will invoke functionality offered by the Firebase Functions in this repo to do so. To send messages to users, the tracing system will make a POST to the /messaging endpoint with a MessagingRequest object (models/MessagingRequest.ts) with the contact details required to contact the user through the appropriate mediums. The tracing system can send between [1, n] contact details where n is the number of supported mediums (currently 3 for push notifications, SMS and email).

The messaging system will then send the appropriate messages (in parallel) and wait for all messaging functions to halt, at which point it will colate the results and return them in a MessagingResponse object. Details of the outcomes of each messaging attempt can be found in the response object.

Getting Started

Google provides a very ergonomic set of tools for devloping/deploying Firebase Functions and (assuming you have npm installed) you can install it with the following command: npm i -g firebase-tools.

If you were added to the Firebase project, use firebase login to log into your Google account and gain the ability to deploy. You may infrequently encounter a situation where you do need to be added to the Firebase project and logged in, if this is the case reach out to Andrew Kaiser or John Lo.

Time to get hacking! Here's some good resources/commands:

• You can start the system for testing with firebase serve, and deploy with firebase deploy.
• Google's "Get Started" guide for Firebase functions
• Google's guide to HTTP-event functions

Config Variables - The Open Issue You'll Probably Encounter

In order to keep our API keys and the like secure, this system uses Firebase's Function Configuration system. This means that these keys live in Firebase and not within the project, and are added via the CLI. If you get a crash where there's some property in functions.config() that doesn't exist, it's because the system cannot find these config variables. This is still an open issue, if you encounter it ping Andrew Kaiser for further steps. You'll be given a configuration file that has these keys and instructions on how to use them

Functions

webApi

This function hooks in Express, see Endpoints for further details.

Endpoints

/messaging

POST

Creates a new document in the /messages collection and sends the message. Does not respond until message has been sent so that success/failure can be communicated back. A new document is made regardless or success or failure. All three contact details fields are optional, but at least one option must be present (or else what's the point?). A failure in any of the messaging attempts (push notification, email, text) will cause the response status to be 500, even if only one messaging attempt failed. The information to determine the exact failure mode is included in the response body.

See examples for phone number format.

Example Body:

{
  "messageType":"GET_TESTED",
  "token":"[REDACTED]",
  "locale":"en-US",
  "contactDetails":{
  	"deviceFp":"aaaabbbbccccddddeeeeffff",
  	"phoneNumber":"+15551234567",
  	"email":"info@zerobase.io"
  }
}

Example Success Response:

// STATUS: 200
// Note: Token is stripped off response 

{
  "messageType": "GET_TESTED",
  "locale": "en-US",
  "contactDetails": {
    "deviceFp": "aaaabbbbccccddddeeeeffff",
    "phoneNumber": "+15551234567",
    "email": "info@zerobase.io"
  },
  "messageResults": {
    "deviceFp": {
      "didSucceed": true,
      "data": {...}
    },
    "email": {
      "didSucceed": true,
      "data": {...}
    },
    "phoneNumber": {
      "didSucceed": true,
      "data": {...}
    }
  }
}

Example Failure Response (Happy Path):

// Issue: Email failed
// STATUS: 200

{
  "messageType":"GET_TESTED",
  "locale":"en-US",
  "contactDetails": {
    "deviceFp":"aaaabbbbccccddddeeeeffff",
    "phoneNumber":"+15551234567",
    "email":"info@zerobase.io"
  },
  "messageResults": {
    "deviceFp": {
      "didSucceed":true,
      "data": {...}
    },
    "phoneNumber": {
      "didSucceed":true,
      "data": {...}
    },
    "email": {
      "didSucceed":false,
      "error": {...}
    }
  }
}

Firebase Functions Configuration

Group	Key	Description	Value
twilio	sid	The SID for our Twilio account.	Private
	token	The API token for our Twilio account.	Private
	phoneno	The phone number which Twilio will use to send texts.	Private
mailgun	from_email	The email address from which our notification emails will be sent.	info@zerobase.io
	domain	The domain of our host for SMTP.	mail.zerobase.io
	from_title	The human-readable name of the sender.	Zerobase
	api_key	The API key for Mailgun.	Private
zerobase	token	The API token for this system.	Private