Receiving POST request from external web site? (vue-apollo and internal APIs)

[KnowblyTrip]

Hoping for some insight, and apologies if this is not the appropriate forum for this question. I'm building a plug-in for a third-party platform using Vue CLI 3 and vue-apollo. As part of the launch of my plug-in in that host platform (they use LTI), the lti_launch sends a POST to a URL of my choosing. Obviously, I can't capture that at a route in vue-router. Within the confines of vue-apollo, how do I establish an endpoint to receive that POST data so that I can resolve the URL, capture the data, and then redirect to the main page of the app? I'm currently running my app locally -- http://localhost:4000/graphql for server and https://localhost:8080/ for client. The host application requires the endpoint be served over https, so my first question would be how to get the graphql server to run over https.

My view.config.js:

module.exports = {
  pluginOptions: {
    apollo: {
      enableMocks: false,
      enableEngine: false,
      // Base folder for the server source files
      serverFolder: './apollo-server',
      // Cross-Origin options
      cors: '*',
    }
  },
  devServer: {
    disableHostCheck: true,
    https: true
  }
}

My vue-apollo.js:

import Vue from 'vue'
import VueApollo from 'vue-apollo'
import { createApolloClient, restartWebsockets } from 'vue-cli-plugin-apollo/graphql-client'

// Install the vue plugin
Vue.use(VueApollo)

// Name of the localStorage item
const AUTH_TOKEN = 'apollo-token';
const TOKEN_TYPE = 'token-type';
const CLIENT_ID = 'client-id';
var APOLLO_CLIENT;

// Http endpoint
const httpEndpoint = process.env.VUE_APP_GRAPHQL_HTTP || 'http://localhost:4000/graphql'

// Config
const defaultOptions = {
  // You can use `https` for secure connection (recommended in production)
  httpEndpoint,
  // You can use `wss` for secure connection (recommended in production)
  // Use `null` to disable subscriptions
  wsEndpoint: process.env.VUE_APP_GRAPHQL_WS || 'ws://localhost:4000/graphql',
  // LocalStorage token
  tokenName: AUTH_TOKEN,
  // Enable Automatic Query persisting with Apollo Engine
  persisting: false,
  // Use websockets for everything (no HTTP)
  // You need to pass a `wsEndpoint` for this to work
  websocketsOnly: false,
  // Is being rendered on the server?
  ssr: false,

  // Override default apollo link
  // note: don't override httpLink here, specify httpLink options in the
  // httpLinkOptions property of defaultOptions.
  // link: myLink

  // Override default cache
  // cache: myCache

  // Override the way the Authorization header is set
  // getAuth: (tokenName) => ...

  // Additional ApolloClient options
  // apollo: { ... }

  // Client local data (see apollo-link-state)
  // clientState: { resolvers: { ... }, defaults: { ... } }
}

// Call this in the Vue app file
export function createProvider (options = {}) {
  // Create apollo client
  //console.log("CREATE PROVIDER CALLED")
  const { apolloClient, wsClient } = createApolloClient({
    ...defaultOptions,
    ...options,
  })
  apolloClient.wsClient = wsClient

  // Create vue apollo provider
  const apolloProvider = new VueApollo({
    defaultClient: apolloClient,
    defaultOptions: {
      $query: {
        // fetchPolicy: 'cache-and-network',
      },
    },
    errorHandler (error) {
      // eslint-disable-next-line no-console
      console.log('%cError', 'background: red; color: white; padding: 2px 4px; border-radius: 3px; font-weight: bold;', error.message)
    },
  })
  APOLLO_CLIENT = apolloClient;
  return apolloProvider;
}

// Manually call this when user log in
export async function onLogin (token, token_type, client_id) {
  if (typeof localStorage !== 'undefined' && token) {
    localStorage.setItem(AUTH_TOKEN, token);
    localStorage.setItem(TOKEN_TYPE, token_type);
    localStorage.setItem(CLIENT_ID, client_id);
    console.log("ON LOGIN LOCAL STORAGE ITEMS: " + '', localStorage);
  }
  if (APOLLO_CLIENT.wsClient) restartWebsockets(APOLLO_CLIENT.wsClient)
  try {
    await APOLLO_CLIENT.resetStore()
  } catch (e) {
    // eslint-disable-next-line no-console
    console.log('%cError on cache reset (login)', 'color: orange;', e.message)
  }
}

// Manually call this when user log out
export async function onLogout (apolloClient) {
  if (typeof localStorage !== 'undefined') {
    localStorage.removeItem(AUTH_TOKEN)
  }
  if (apolloClient.wsClient) restartWebsockets(apolloClient.wsClient)
  try {
    await apolloClient.resetStore()
  } catch (e) {
    // eslint-disable-next-line no-console
    console.log('%cError on cache reset (logout)', 'color: orange;', e.message)
  }
}

My .graphqlconfig.yml:

projects:
  app:
    schemaPath: apollo-server/schema.graphql
    includes:
      - '**/*.gql'
    extensions:
      endpoints:
        default: 'http://localhost:4000/graphql'

I'm somewhat new to Vue. Aside from the actual front end stuff, which I wrote, most of the app just uses the default scaffolding through Vue CLI 3 and vue-apollo plugin. I'm sure there's something simple I'm missing, but scanning through the various docs online and googling hasn't gotten me very far.

I have tried changing all references to localhost:4000 to https (they are http in the snippets above) -- but that doesn't seem to change the running app.

Assuming I can get localhost:4000/graphql to run over https:// -- if that is what I am, indeed, meant to do -- where/how do I establish my own internal API endpoints. I only really need the one to receive that POST request from the third-party host application. Other than that, the app just consumes other third-party APIs via GET and displays the content in a dashboard on the client.

Is there a standard or Best Practice way to achieve what I'm looking to do? Do I need to write some Express middleware? Is there a doc that explains it all that I simply can't find. Does vue-apollo handle this sort of thing natively, or do I need to write my own middleware, etc? Many thanks.

[Akryum]

I guess you need this? https://vue-cli-plugin-apollo.netlify.com/guide/express-middleware.html