Kestrel

Overview

Kestrel is a part of FRC team 1678's scouting system. It connects various frontend devices to our backend database. It is a REST API, and built in python utilizing the FastAPI library. Kestrel is designed to be as simple, understandable, and flexible as possible. It includes simple authentication and is designed to connect to a MongoDB database as well as other outside API's.

Running Locally

If you're looking to run Kestrel locally, this guide will walk you through the steps.

Virtual Environment

You'll first need to set up a virtual environment. The way I would recommend is the built in venv module in python. You can set up this method by running these commands in the terminal

• Create a new virtual environment: python -m venv venv

• Activate the environment: source venv/bin/activate

• Install the required packages: pip install -r requirements.txt

Environment variables

If there is data we need to keep a secret, such as API keys, we store them in environment variables. Copy the env.example file and rename it to .env.

Inside you will find all the required environment variables, but without any values, so you will need to fill them in.

• MONGO_CONNECTION This is the connection string for the MongoDB cloud database. It should include the full string, starting with the mongodb+srv://

• API_KEY This is the string that you need in order to authenticate and access Kestrel.

• TBA_KEY A key to access The Blue Alliance's API

Starting the API server

To start the API server, there are a few ways. The way I would personally recommend is to run fastapi dev in the terminal.
It should start an api session and tell you where there server has been started, which should look something like http://127.0.0.1:8000.
If you enter that into a browser, you won't see much. Instead go to the documentation page, found at your hosted link with /docs at the end, for example: http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs.
Once you are at the docs, you will be able to test your various endpoints, but first you must authorize yourself. You can do this by just clicking the green button in the top right corner that says Authorize. Enter the api key you set in your environment variable and you should be good to go.

Developing

If for some reason you want to use Kestrel, it's fairly simple. Assuming you use a MongoDB database, you mainly just have to change the different endpoints so that they process and return the data you would like.

Why the name kestrel?

The previous 1678 API was named grosbeak, so I chose the name kestrel to continue the bird name scheme :)