Category Archives: Sprint 2

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

In this post, I’ll be reflecting on our second sprint towards developing and implementing an Identity and Access Management system for Thea’s Pantry. Coming out of Sprint 1, we had a better idea of Keycloak in general, and we had some basic frameworks for a fake frontend and fake backend. Our sprint goal for Sprint 2 was to fully integrate these components, so that we could provide a proof of concept for the entire workflow, as opposed to just one component. We wanted to be able to force authentication on a frontend page via a Keycloak login page, and then we wanted to be able to store the resultant access token from that interaction so that we can perform authenticated actions without ever talking to Keycloak again.

Some of my personal work towards that goal was as follows:

GitLab

  • Documenting our low-level issues in GitLab and assigning them accordingly. I put additional focus/effort this sprint into properly linking related issues, blockers, and tracking various key information in comments, as opposed to just using issues as a task list. Epic

Backend

  • Refactor the backend endpoint to verify the signature of a JWT to ensure authenticity. Note – this was a great learning experience in better understanding how async and await work in JS. This issue took me way too long to resolve. Squash Commit

  • Further briefly modify the endpoint to pull specific custom data out of the generated JWT from Keycloak. Commit

Frontend

  • Configure Docker compose files and Git submodules to containerize all three repositories into the fake frontend to test the whole flow. Commit

  • Completely facelift/refactor/rework/reimplement the fake frontend to use Vue as a build framework to test our implementation in the same context as it will be used in production. Configure dependency and instantiation of Keycloak in the JS to handle redirect and access token storage and usage. Commits: 1 , 2

Something that worked particularly well this sprint was our focus on increased communication. We refactored our working agreement to address some of our shortcomings in communication and accountability, and I felt like this sprint was better for us around the board. We had a bit more direction this sprint, and we accomplished our goal exactly as we laid it out, barring 2 lines of code that we have to add that are just blocked right now.

That said, – at risk of contradicting myself – I feel like something that did not work as well, and that we can continue to improve, is also our communication. Though it was better this sprint, it still definitely felt at times like we were not a team, and instead like we each had our tasks that we would connect on once or twice a week in class meetings. Maybe this is fine, and to be honest it worked okay for the most part, but I feel like in an ideal world for me, I would have us all being very proactive and communicative about our issues, though I don’t know if this is a fair thing to aim for our team to improve, or if maybe I should reevaluate my expectations.

Something I could improve is my focus on defining roles and responsibilities for the general team dynamic, not just for issues. I felt like I focused on accountability for issues on GitLab, for example, but I also feel like I informally assumed the role of Scrum Master / Sprint Lead for this sprint, though we never really defined or said that. It seemed to work fine for us, but it is something I think I could have specified better, instead of just sort of assuming a leadership role.

The pattern I have chosen for this sprint is The Deep End. This is because one of the issues I spent the most time on during this sprint was implementing JWT signature verification. This should not have been a difficult issue, but I really have never worked with functions in js specifically, and for some reason I was caught in a loop of bad syntax and usage of things like const, async, and await. I had no idea what I was doing, and was so lost as to why my code was not working. It took a lot of reading and being lost for a while before finally realizing my error was not the libraries I was using, but just a lack of understanding regarding js. 

From the blog Mr. Lancer 987's Blog by Mr. Lancer 987 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

CS 448-01 Team 3: Sprint 2 Retrospective (4/4)

With the second sprint, we had so much trouble with our sprint until near the end of the sprint. To elaborate on what went wrong, I would like to start out with what we were planning from the very start, as this will be very important for what we will be doing for the next sprint.

While our last sprint, we split between meeting remotely and meeting in-person, we finally decided that it would be better for us to meet in-person. We also came up with a wireframe that we decided to use as our template to create our framework for AddInventoryFrontend (https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/documentation/-/blob/main/Developer/Wireframes.md). Since we already had AddInventoryBackend working as intended with the proper testing IDs being used as a way to test our code for the Backend, we only just needed to create AddInventoryFrontend so that we can try to put a frame over all the work that was done with the Backend from last year. At the very least, we knew exactly how we wanted to build our front-end.

On the contrary to how we finally have a plan for our Frontend, I was having lots of trouble with trying to build the Frontend. Since I had lots of trouble with some of the issues that we did, I instead decided to focus on redoing some of the issues we had from last sprint (https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/inventorysystem/addinventoryfrontend/-/issues/36). At the very least, I could at least contribute a little bit to our sprint, knowing the tasks that we were unable to completely finish.

What we as a team learned from sprint 2 was that we learned about using Vue, a Javascript framework that we would use to help build our Frontend. While we were not able to get the entire page running, we added a functionality to be able to add a button to our Frontend, just as we intended when we were following our wireframe example from earlier. Once we had explored our options to how we would build our Frontend, we decided to use a new wireframe that my teammate would create for our team to follow along with.

The things I could do improve on as an individual is that I need to speak out more with my team about the issues that may have, let it be related to work or anything other. I had trouble with this sprint because I was not great with programming with HTML and Javascript, and I felt like that was really hindering my performance as a team member. I did my best with trying to get help with working on the sprint, and when that was not working out well for me, I consulted my search engines instead. As someone who was much better with AddInventoryBackend, working with the Frontend was not my strength as shown in this sprint. I was confused with what wireframe we were using for the sprint until the end of the sprint when we had a semi-functioning Frontend that we were going to tweak in our next sprint. For the next sprint, I am hoping that I can get to do anything that is not too technical like directly running the Frontend, and I hope that then next sprint will be where our team will be able to get a working Frontend by the end of next sprint.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Elias' Blog by Elias Boone and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.