Week 13: User deletion feature

Overview

As we wrap up week 13, we are inching closer to the launch of StartChart (aka MyCustomDomain) 1.0. Despite a busy week with school submissions, I managed to implement a crucial feature: user deletion, available exclusively for admins.

Problem Statement

Deleting a user in a system often requires cascading deletion of all or most data associated with them. StartChart is no exception; our users have DNS records that need to be deleted as well. However, we decided not to delete SSL certificates for security reasons or other considerations.

Implementation

Surprisingly, I didn't need to write any cascading deletion functionality myself. Prisma handles it automatically by deleting all entities referencing the deleted user, like DNS records in a many-to-one relationship. This revelation was quite impressive for me.

User deletion boiled down to two lines of code:

1. Deleting the user from the database (it cascades to DNS records)
2. Setting the reconciler to reconcile the database with Route53

Here's the code snippet:

export async function deleteUser(username: User['username']) {
  await deleteUserByUsername(username);
  return setIsReconciliationNeeded(true);
}

The bigger issue was to integrate it in existing admin page. There were 2 type of actions before I added user deletion:

• Searching users
• Impersonating users

With the addition of the third action, I refactored the code and assigned an intent to each action, which I believe is the recommended way to handle multiple actions in Remix. I also updated the zod schema and made some fields optional for reuse across different actions.

Review

After I was done, created the PR and few iterations of reviews with minor suggestions it ended up being merged.

https://github.com/DevelopingSpace/starchart/pull/607

Afterthoughts

Last week was tough as I had to catch up with classes and submit various projects. Fortunately, I managed to do so successfully. It was also an Orthodox Easter and even tho I am consider myself as atheist, it was a very great time spent with my family that I really appreciated. I also signed up for the olympic distance triathlon that gonna be in the late July, and I feel like this is gonna be amazing (fun fact: I newer swam in pool for more than 50 meters and don't have a bike yet). Right now I just gotta do a final stretch and school is gonna be done, I am a one week closer to lifestyle I want to have.

Oh, and also the last thing, I tried cold-showering for one minute in the morning (after like 10 mins of the warm shower as I usually have + going out for like 10 minutes right after that = feeling amazing and energetic throughout the day. Good luck with finals, everyone! Peace.