BOXD

A Go REST API for scraping and fetching my Letterboxd favorites, storing the data to MongoDB. JWT token is generated using a secret word and username flag.

GO API blog write-up

Setup

# Initialize Go module
go mod init boxd

# Install dependencies
go mod tidy

Running the Server

Prerequisites

• Go 1.16 or later
• MongoDB instance

Environment Variables

Letterboxd username and monogdb can be set via a flag when starting the server.

• LETTERBOXD_USERNAME: Letterboxd username
• MONGODB_URI: MongoDB connection string (required for POST endpoint)
• JWT_SECRET: jwt token used to authenticate requests against
• AUTH_SECRET_WORD: for validating a jwt token generation.
• PORT: Server port (defaults to 8080)

Command-line Flags

• -username: Override the Letterboxd username
• -mongodb-uri: Override the MongoDB connection URI

Example

Start the server:

export LETTERBOXD_USERNAME=yourusername
export MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017
go run main.go

API Endpoints

GET /favourites

Returns a JSON array of Letterboxd favorite movies.

Example response:

[
  {
    "title": "The Godfather",
    "year": "1972",
    "imageUrl": "https://letterboxd.com/path/to/image.jpg",
    "movieUrl": "https://letterboxd.com/film/the-godfather/",
    "updatedAt": "2024-03-21T15:04:05Z"
  }
]

POST /favourites

Scrapes Letterboxd favorites and saves them to MongoDB.

Example response:

{
  "message": "Successfully saved favorites to database",
  "count": "4"
}

Both endpoints have CORS enabled, allowing requests from any origin.

Authentication

All endpoints (except the health check endpoint /) require authentication using a Bearer token.

Include the token in the Authorization header for all requests. Example Requests:

# Get favorites
curl -X GET http://localhost:8080/favourites \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your_token_here"

# Scrape and save favorites
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/favourites \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your_token_here"

Error Responses

Missing token:

{
  "error": "Authorization header required"
}

Invalid token:

{
  "error": "Invalid token"
}