openapi: 3.0.2 info: title: Penn Courses API Documentation [Accounts] User [Accounts] User [PCR] Autocomplete Dump API version: '' description: ' # Introduction Penn Courses ([GitHub](https://github.com/pennlabs/penn-courses)) is the umbrella categorization for [Penn Labs](https://pennlabs.org/) products designed to help students navigate the course registration process. It currently includes three products, each with their own API documented on this page: Penn Course Alert, Penn Course Plan, and Penn Course Review. See `Penn Labs Notion > Penn Courses` for more details on each of our (currently) three apps. For instructions on how to maintain this documentation while writing code, see the comments in `backend/PennCourses/docs_settings.py` (it is easy, and will be helpful for maintaining Labs knowledge in spite of our high member turnover rate). See our [GitHub](https://github.com/pennlabs/penn-courses) repo for instructions on installation, running in development, and loading in course data for development. Visit the `/admin/doc/` route ([link](/admin/doc/)) for the backend documentation generated by Django (admin account required, which can be made by running `python manage.py createsuperuser` in terminal/CLI). # Unified Penn Courses By virtue of the fact that all Penn Courses products deal with, well, courses, it would make sense for all three products to share the same backend. We realized the necessity of a unified backend when attempting to design a new Django backend for Penn Course Plan. We like to live by the philosophy of keeping it [DRY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don''t_repeat_yourself), and PCA and PCP''s data models both need to reference course and section information. We could have simply copied over code (a bad idea) or created a shared reusable Django app (a better idea) for course data, but each app would still need to download copies of the same data. Additionally, this will help us build integrations between our Courses products. # Authentication PCx user authentication is handled by platform''s Penn Labs Accounts Engine. See [Penn Labs Notion > Platform > The Accounts Engine](https://www.notion.so/pennlabs/The-Accounts-Engine-726ccf8875e244f4b8dbf8a8f2c97a87?pvs=4) for extensive documentation and links to repositories for this system. When tags or routes are described as requiring user authentication, they are referring to this system. I highly recommend the [official video course on OAuth2](https://oauth.net/2/) (by Aaron Parecki), then the Platform Notion docs on the "Accounts Engine" for anyone who wants to understand Labs authentication better. Platform is our OAuth2 "Authorization Server", and Django Labs Accounts is an OAuth2 client run by our Django backends (Clubs, Penn Courses, etc), exposing client-facing authentication routes like `penncourseplan.com/accounts/login`. There''s also this Wikipedia page explaining [Shibboleth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth_(software)) (which is used by Penn for authentication, and by the Platform authorization server). See the Django docs for more on Django''s features for [User Authentication](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/auth/), which are used by PCX apps, as part of Platform''s accounts system. ' x-logo: url: https://i.imgur.com/tVsRNxJ.png altText: Labs Logo contact: email: contact@pennlabs.org servers: - url: https://penncoursereview.com description: Penn Course Review - url: https://penncourseplan.com description: Penn Course Plan tags: - name: '[PCR] Autocomplete Dump' description: '' paths: /api/review/autocomplete: get: operationId: Retrieve Autocomplete Dump description: '(GET `/api/review/autocomplete`) Autocomplete entries for Courses, departments, instructors. All objects have title, description, and url. This route does not have any path parameters or query parameters, it just dumps all the information necessary for frontend-based autocomplete. It is also cached to improve performance.' parameters: [] responses: '200': content: application/json: schema: properties: courses: type: array description: Data on courses for autocomplete. items: type: object properties: title: type: string description: The dash-joined department and code of the course, e.g. `CIS-120` for CIS-120. desc: type: string description: The title of the course, e.g. 'Programming Languages and Techniques I' for CIS-120. url: type: url description: The relative route through which this course's reviews can be accessed (a prefix of `/api/review/` is assumed). departments: type: array description: Data on departments for autocomplete. items: type: object properties: title: type: string description: The string department code, e.g. `CIS` for the CIS department. desc: type: string description: The name of the department, e.g. 'Computer and Information Sci' for the CIS department. url: type: url description: The relative route through which this department's reviews can be accessed (a prefix of `/api/review/` is assumed). instructors: type: array description: Data on instructors for autocomplete. items: type: object properties: title: type: string description: The full name of the instructor. desc: type: string description: A comma-separated string list of department codes to which this instructor belongs. url: type: url description: The relative route through which this instructor's reviews can be accessed (a prefix of `/api/review/` is assumed). description: Autocomplete dump retrieved successfully. tags: - '[PCR] Autocomplete Dump' x-tagGroups: - name: Penn Course Plan tags: - '[PCP] Course Recommendations' - '[PCP] Schedule' - '[PCP] Primary Schedule' - '[PCP] Calendar' - '[PCP] Break' - name: Penn Course Alert tags: - '[PCA] Registration History' - '[PCA] Registration' - name: Penn Course Review tags: - '[PCR] Course Reviews' - '[PCR] Autocomplete Dump' - '[PCR] Department Reviews' - '[PCR] Section-Specific Reviews' - '[PCR] Plots' - '[PCR] Instructor Reviews' - name: Penn Courses (Base) tags: - '[PCx] NGSS Restrictions' - '[PCx] Attributes' - '[PCx] Status Updates' - '[PCx] Healths' - '[PCx] Friendship' - '[PCx] Course' - '[PCx] Section' - '[PCx] Pre-NGSS Requirements' - name: Penn Labs Accounts tags: - '[Accounts] User' - name: Other tags: - '[PDP] Docked Course' - '[PDP] Degree' - '[PDP] Onboard From Transcript' - '[PDP] Fulfillment' - '[PDP] Degree Plan Lists' - '[PDP] Satisfied Rule Lists' - '[PDP] Degree Plan Detail'