Find addresses using the Allies postcoder service
This service caches the results to save on credits
This service can also operate in a mock mode where no external calls are made.
GET http://example.com/addresses/{searchterm}
This will pass the search term to GET https://ws.postcoder.com/pcw/{apikey}/address/uk/{searchterm}
The query options format, line, page, include, exclude, callback, alias and addtags will also be passed.
If the query option refresh=true is provided the cache will be skipped and updated, for that request.
docker build -t citizensadvice/postcoder .
Optionally create a .env file with the real API_KEY.
docker-compose up
docker run
-p 4001:4000
--env APP_ENV=production
--env API_KEY=PCW45-12345-12345-1234X
--env CACHE_URL=redis://cache:6379/1
--env CACHE_TTL=86_400
citizensadvice/postcoder
http://localhost:4001/addresses/E1
bundle exec rubocop
bundle exec rspec
# Or using docker
docker-compose run --rm -e APP_ENV=test app bundle exec rspec
We have one API key used on production and the devops environment.
The Allied test API key of PCW45-12345-12345-1234X always returns the same response.
Start in mock mode by supplying the ENV MOCK_MODE=true. This reads responses from the file system and will not enabled Redis.
Note that mock mode does not support the query options and always returns JSON.
MOCK_MODE=true docker-compose up
If running mock mode you probably want to set NEW_RELIC_AGENT_ENABLED=false and WEB_CONCURRENCY=0.
| Key name | Description |
|---|---|
| APP_ENV | The app environment. This should be set to production on all AWS environments |
| API_KEY | The API key for the Postcoder web service |
| CACHE_URL | The url for the Redis cache |
| CACHE_TTL | How long to cache a new entry (in seconds). This is 2_592_000 (30 days) in production |
| NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY | If provided, New Relic will be enabled |
| MOCK_MODE | If true, operate in mock mode where responses are read from the file system |
| WEB_CONCURRENCY | Set to 0 if running locally for a tiny performance boost |