Learn Chai, Cloudinary and Zeit-now

zeit-now

[Vercel](https://vercel.com) is a hosting platform that works very well with [Next.js](https://nextjs.org) - because it's their framework! In this lesson, we prepare our project to be deployed to production by:

- Pushing code to [GitHub](https://github.com/)
- Deploying repo to [Vercel](https://vercel.com)
- Updating [GitHub OAuth app](https://github.com/settings/developers) to use production URL
- Updating [Supabase](https://supabase.com/) project to use production URL

## Resources

- [Deploy Next.js to Vercel guide](https://nextjs.org/learn/basics/deploying-nextjs-app/deploy)
- [GitHub OAuth App settings](https://github.com/settings/developers)
- [Vercel](https://vercel.com)
- [Supabase URL configuration](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/auth/url-configuration)

Deploy Next.js App Router project to production with Vercel

cloudinary

We'll learn how to integrate Cloudinary into our Strapi application so that we can upload image assets in our Strapi dashboard and the resulting image will be stored in Cloudinary and ready for use in our application.

We'll create a `config/plugins.js` file and paste in some config code that sets Cloudinary as the provider with `cloud_name`, `api_key`, and `api_secret`.

Then we'll install the Cloudinary provider plugin with `npm install @strapi/provider-upload-cloudinary`, add the middleware security that lets us use Cloudinary, and finally add Cloudinary credentials to our `.env` file.

Install and Add the Cloudinary Provider to a Strapi Application

Remix is a full stack web framework that focuses on web standards and the server/client model so that you can develop the features your users want and need without being bogged down in over-abstractions. When you get good with Remix, you actually get good at the foundations of web development.

remix

Using a GitHub repo to deploy our application to Vercel, keeps our code and live production site in sync. In this lesson we look at using the [GitHub CLI](https://cli.github.com/) tool to create a public repo, and adding it as a remote origin for our project.

Additionally, we create a new Vercel project from this GitHub repo, add our Supabase environment variables, and deploy. Lastly, we update the Homepage URL in our GitHub OAuth app to be our new Vercel URL, and set our Supabase project's [Authentication Site URL](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/auth/url-configuration) to our new live application URL.

## Extension ideas

- Style the app using Tailwind CSS (or another method of choice)
- Implement the ability for a user to `update` and `delete` their own messages
- Add the option to set a username and display this alongside messages
- Add separate message threads/chat rooms
- Implement private messages/chat rooms

## Resources

- [GitHub CLI](https://cli.github.com/)
- [Vercel docs](https://vercel.com/docs)
- [Deploying Remix app to Vercel](https://vercel.com/guides/deploying-remix-with-vercel)

Deploy a Remix Application to Vercel from a GitHub Repository

Media is an important part in creating a good UX for potential customers of your store, but when serving large unoptimized images, you can end up giving them a poor experience with long page loads.

We can instead use Cloudinary to automatically optimize our images and resize them on the fly with Cloudinary's programmable media API to deliver a more performant online store.

* [Cloudinary URL-Gen for JS - cloudinary.com](https://cloudinary.com/documentation/sdks/js/url-gen/index.html)

Optimize Media with Cloudinary to Deliver Smaller and Performant Images

🚨The Cloudinary UIX has been deprecated. If you are using it, you need to replace it with the App. [Here](https://hygraph.com/docs/guides/integrations/connect-cloudinary#migration) is a step-by-step guide on how to do it. 🚨

We will take an existing UI extension, Cloudinary, clone it down, and create our own instance, installing it into our GraphCMS content editor. Once we add that Cloudinary asset as a field, we will select those images directly from our Cloudinary account and serve those images right inside of our app.

Add and Configure Cloudinary UI Extension to Add Images From a Cloudinary Media Library

Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.

Deploy a project on Vercel (formerly ZEIT) from a GitHub repository

Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

node

Now by Zeit has recently been updated and now supports multi-language monorepos. In this lesson we'll build and deploy a simple app with an API powered by Node.js and Go.

If you want to follow along with this lesson, you will need to install [now-cli](https://github.com/zeit/now-cli).

Deploy a Monorepo to Now V2

Angular is a development platform for creating applications using modern web standards. Angular includes a wealth of essential features such as mobile gestures, animations, filtering, routing, data binding, security, internationalization, and beautiful UI components. It's extremely modular, lightweight, and easy to learn.

angular

In this lesson we will add support for deploying our application to [now.sh](https://zeit.co/now).

We will create a `now` object in package.json where we configure the name, the alias and the list of files we want to deploy.

We create an npm run-script called `now-build` and set the value to `true` to skip building the project on `now.sh`. The second run-script called `now` invokes `now deploy && now alias`. 

After this we sun `npm run build && npm run now` to build and deploy our app!

Deploy an Angular CLI Project to now.sh

React is one of the web’s most popular frameworks for building JavaScript applications. 

If you know what you’re doing, React can drastically simplify how you build, use, and maintain code.

Whether you’re a React newbie or you’re ready for advanced techniques, you can level-up with egghead. Explore our in-depth courses, lessons, and community resources to build more powerful applications and crack open your career.

react

In this lesson, we’ll make a few small changes to our scripts and add some environment variables that will be used at build time to get our application ready to be deployed to a production environment using the `now` service. Once properly configured, we’ll use the `now` CLI and publish our application to a production server.

Configure a React & Redux Application For Production Deployment and Deploy to Now

Chai is a BDD / TDD assertion library for node and the browser that can be delightfully paired with any javascript testing framework.

chai

In this lesson, you will learn how to verify your API server is returning HTTP 400 responses when clients submit incorrect data. Returning HTTP 400 ensures that your clients are notified of the incorrect usage. Testing for them ensures your API returns errors instead of incorrect responses when supplied with incorrect data.

Test for HTTP 400 responses with Mocha and Chai

In this lesson, we will use Chai's request method to test our Node application's API responses.
By the end of this lesson, you will know how to:
- install the prerequisites to use mocha and chai in your application
- test for HTTP status response codes
- test for a string of text on a page
- test for a json response and validate the properties of the object
- write tests that not only verify the response of your application, but the behavior as well


Test Node RESTful API with Mocha and Chai

Mocha is a feature-rich JavaScript test framework running on Node.js and in the browser, making asynchronous testing simple and fun. Mocha tests run serially, allowing for flexible and accurate reporting, while mapping uncaught exceptions to the correct test cases.

mocha

Writing great ES6 style Promises for Node.js is only half the battle. Your great modules must include tests as well to ensure future iterations don't break them. In this lesson, I show you a simple ES6 Promise in Node.js, then walk you through creating tests in Mocha using chai and chai-as-promised to test both resolve and reject methods.

Testing ES6 Promises in Node.js using Mocha and Chai

Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications.

express

Now is a great way to deploy your node application, but the generated URLs aren't memorable or easily remembered. With Now's alias command, you can fix that. In this video lesson we'll cover how to add an alias to a deployment, giving you a custom `*.now.sh` subdomain, how to create an alias using your own custom domain name, how to list your aliases and finally how to remove an alias if you no longer want it.

Use Now alias for custom sub-domains

`now` allows you to take your JavaScript (Node.js) or Docker powered websites, applications and services to the cloud with ease,
speed and reliability. In practical terms, any directory that contains a `package.json` or `Dockerfile` can be transported to the cloud with one command: `now`.


Applications require a lot of sensitive information. Database passwords, API keys and secrets used for signing JWTs, just to name a few. If you're deploying your application using the Now CLI, you can deploy your secret information right through the CLI and give your code access to those secrets without exposing them directly in your source code. In this lesson, we'll cover how to add secrets to now, how to use a secret as the value of an environment variable and how to list and remove secrets in now.

Use Secrets When Deploying Applications with Now

Now that you've got everything set up with mocha and chai, it's time to actually write tests. In this lesson you'll learn how to use `describe` and `it` to outline your tests and make sure you don't break your library in the future.

Unit Testing with Mocha and Chai

Every dependable library needs to have tests to ensure that you don't push accidental bugs. In this lesson, see how you can set up mocha and chai to start testing your library.

Setting up Unit Testing with Mocha and Chai

I've been using Cursor for a very long time and their "Agent" feature in Composer is fairly new, so I'm still getting used to it. But since Windsurf recently got onto the stage with their Cascade agent, they've slowly been gaining the mind share on the UX for coding agents. I decided to put them to the test by putting Windsurf and Cursor on the exact same screen side by side trying to accomplish the same task and to see which workflow I would prefer. I've been a diehard Cursor user for over a year now, so it's going to take a lot for me to switch to a different IDE. But I just have to say, even from this simple demo, Windsurf is looking pretty nice.

This lesson is just going to walk through creating a CLI using both tools to print out inspirational quotes and to explore how they approach the step-by-step of installing packages and running commands and setting up all the files we need to get this running.

Windsurf Cascade vs. Cursor Composer Agent Side-by-Side Comparison

This TypeScript tutorial explains how to use generics, allowing for different types to be passed as arguments. It discusses the use of shorthand syntax in generics and illustrates with examples. This method is useful for library creation, providing type safety and control to the user.

```typescript
interface PhotoMetadata<T> {
  title: string;
  takenAt: Date;
  customData: T;
}

// Function that processes a photo with custom metadata
function processPhoto<T>(photo: PhotoMetadata<T>): {
  processedTitle: string;
  daysSinceCapture: number;
  customDataSummary: T;
} {
  const today = new Date();
  const daysSinceCapture = Math.floor(
    (today.getTime() - photo.takenAt.getTime()) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24)
  );

  return {
    processedTitle: photo.title.toUpperCase(),
    daysSinceCapture,
    customDataSummary: photo.customData
  };
}

// Example usage with different custom data shapes
type CameraSettings = {
  iso: number;
  aperture: string;
  shutterSpeed: string;
}

type LocationData = {
  latitude: number;
  longitude: number;
  locationName: string;
}

// Using with camera settings
const photoWithCamera: PhotoMetadata<CameraSettings> = {
  title: "Sunset at beach",
  takenAt: new Date('2024-01-15'),
  customData: {
    iso: 100,
    aperture: "f/2.8",
    shutterSpeed: "1/1000"
  }
};

// Using with location data
const photoWithLocation: PhotoMetadata<LocationData> = {
  title: "Mountain vista",
  takenAt: new Date('2024-02-01'),
  customData: {
    latitude: 45.5231,
    longitude: -122.6765,
    locationName: "Mount Hood"
  }
};

const processedCameraPhoto = processPhoto(photoWithCamera);
const processedLocationPhoto = processPhoto(photoWithLocation);

processedCameraPhoto.customDataSummary.iso
processedLocationPhoto.customDataSummary.longitude

```

Basic Explanation of Typescript Generics

A very basic explanation of generic function arguments

I've been using Cursor as my primary editor for over a year now, but recently I've heard wonderful things about Windsurf AI Agent features. I decided to record myself building out something I've always wanted to make, but never made the time for.

In this lesson, I demonstrate how to leverage Windsurf's powerful agent process to create a fun word-guessing game inspired by Heads Up. Watch as I build an interactive application featuring category selection and word navigation, complete with data hosting on GitHub Gists and deployment to GitHub Pages - all in under 30 minutes (before editing the lesson down to 12 minutes)!

What makes this project particularly exciting is how Windsurf eliminates the typical friction points of development. While this game was always on my project wishlist, the overhead of setup, configuration, and deployment made it hard to justify the time investment. Windsurf's agent process handles all these pain points seamlessly, from managing URLs to orchestrating deployment.

This lesson perfectly showcases how AI agents can help developers bring their backlog of project ideas to life, transforming what would typically be time-consuming tasks into efficient, enjoyable development experiences.

Build a Word Game with Windsurf's Cascade AI Agent



Discover how to harness the power of Cursor IDE's Composer Agent feature to optimize your code. In this lesson, you'll witness an AI agent doing all the work to generate test suites, implement performance benchmarks, and create optimized function variations - all without writing a single line of code. You'll learn how to validate performance improvements through data-driven benchmarking, ensuring that optimizations are backed by concrete metrics rather than speculation. This hands-on demonstration showcases a groundbreaking approach to automated function development that combines the precision of test-driven development with the efficiency of AI-powered optimization.


Agent-Driven Development in Cursor: Testing, Benchmarking, and Optimizing Functions

This course is aimed for using `zod` effectively in projects based on TypeScript (both browser and node.js). The benefits you gain with this course is not just simply coding, but also understanding when/why/how should you perform runtime validation.

`zod` is the missing piece to TypeScript's capabilities, which can guarantee type-safety only in compile-time.

`zod` can be used whenever the compiler cannot guarantee what happens in runtime. And... it's a very frequent usecase, such as HTTP calls, websockets, etc.

In this course you get quickly up and running by:
1. using `zod` with primitives and objects
2. adapting `zod` quickly to existing projects thanks to automatic generators
3. changing the strategy frm type-first to schema-first
4. using error-throwing `parse` or non-error-throwing `safeParse` basing on your needs
5. applying `zod` to the most common usecase - validating API responses
6. handling errors the most convenient way (out of many!)

Take advantage of runtime validation with `zod`. Take advantage of the detailed lessons in this course 🔥

Effective Runtime Type Checks with Zod


Cursor can now automatically run commands in the terminal and walk step-by-step towards building out your entire project. You give it a goal, then it will suggest the commands you need to run and the files that you need to create and you can work with it to achieve what you're building. This lesson does a quick walkthough of using a Cursor Agent to build a project from scratch and guide it along the way. Cursor Agents definitely feel like a sneak peek at the future of programming!

Cursor Agents Initial Impressions - Allow an AI to Build Your Entire Project

Mock Service Worker is an API mocking library that allows you to write client-agnostic mocks and reuse them across any frameworks, tools, and environments.



Mocking WebSocket APIs with Mock Service Worker


While using anonymous functions might seem convenient, they can create difficulties when trying to identify performance bottlenecks during profiling. This lesson will demonstrate how named functions make it easier to pinpoint and address performance issues, ultimately leading to more efficient and debuggable code. Learning this practice will greatly improve your ability to locate and fix performance issues in complex projects.

Always Name Functions in JavaScript


When attempting to load the same module twice in JavaScript you'll hit a cache and code won't re-run. In scenarios where you actually do want to have state in your modules, you'll have to use a cache-busting technique by passing a query parameter to a dynamic import. This lesson walks through how to add a query parameter, how to add the appropriate types for loading dynamic modules in TypeScript, and when these techniques are valuable.

Import the Same JavaScript Module Multiple Times with Cache Busting



The include keyword in GitHub Actions empowers you to add custom variables to your matrix strategy, providing flexibility beyond standard configurations. In this video, we'll explore how include allows you to define specific combinations of variables, enhancing control over your workflow runs. You'll see how this feature enables you to tailor jobs for unique environments or scenarios not covered by the default matrix options. By leveraging include, you can efficiently manage complex build processes with greater precision. This technique helps you streamline your CI/CD pipeline, making it more adaptable to your project's evolving needs.

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