Course Introduction

How to Setup a React Developer Environment with nvm

Intro & Dev Environment Setup

Module 1 Introduction

What is an API?

Okay, but what is a REST API?

What is Express? The Basics of the Node.js web framework

The Basics of Express Router - Requests and Responses

Getting Started with REST APIs & Express

Module 2 Introduction

Getting Started with the Spotify Developer Dashboard

Add nodemon to an Express App to Restart Node Automatically

What is OAuth and How Does it Work? [with examples]

How to Implement OAuth Flow in Express and Node.js

Authentication & Authorization with Spotify

Module 3 Introduction

How to Pass OAuth Tokens to a React App

Optimize React and Express.js code with npm concurrently

Setting Up a React Front-End

Module 4 Introduction

Using Local Storage to Persist Login State

How to Fetch Spotify API Data with Credentials with Axios

How to Setup and Scaffold React Router

Beginner's Guide to Styled Components in React [with examples]

Login State & Front-End Scaffolding

Module 5 Introduction

How to Build a Login Page in React

How to Build a Profile Page in React with Spotify API Data

How to Build a Spotify Top Artists & Top Tracks Page in React

How to Build a Spotify Playlists Page in React

How to Build a Spotify Individual Playlist Page in React

How to Build a React Loading Animation Component

Building & Styling the UI

Module 6 Introduction

How to Change Your React Favicon and Social Preview Images

How to Deploy React to Heroku With a Node.js Server

How to Add a README.md File to React

Deploying to the Internet

Wrapping Up What We’ve Learned

Course Wrap Up

node.js

express

axios

dotenv

Have you ever been curious to see what your Spotify data looks like? How a round-up of your listening habits gets compiled every year? Or even wanted to see metadata of your favorite tracks? Luckily, Spotify makes a ton of interesting data like this accessible via the Spotify API. For example, there is data available for every users’ [top tracks and artists](https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/#endpoint-get-users-top-artists-and-tracks) of all time and [audio features](https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/#endpoint-get-several-audio-features) like danceability and tempo for every single track.

## Why this course

If you're interested in accessing personalized Spotify data like we mentioned above, Spotify requires your app to be authorized. And to get authorization, you'll need to implement something called OAuth. This course will walk you through every step of the OAuth flow in a concise, easy to follow way. Unlike YouTube tutorials that only cover a few concepts and leave you with half-baked GitHub repositories, we'll cover everything from explaining what REST APIs are to implementing Spotify's OAuth flow to fetching data from the Spotify API in React hooks. Split into seven modules, each lesson includes clear, detailed explanations and complete code examples. By the end of the course, you'll have an app deployed to the internet that you can share with your friends and add to your portfolio.

## What we’ll build

**On the front end**, we’ll build out a professional, responsive user interface with [React](https://reactjs.org/), React Hooks, and the popular CSS-in-JS library, [Styled Components](https://styled-components.com/). We’ll pull in data from the Spotify API using modern ES6 [async/await](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/JavaScript/Asynchronous/Async_await) methods and display that data in an engaging way.

**On the back end**, we’ll learn the basics of [REST APIs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer), [HTTP requests](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Methods), and [OAuth](https://oauth.net/). We'll lift the veil on how to [authorize an app with Spotify](https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/general/guides/authorization-guide/), and then build a Node server with the [Express framework](https://expressjs.com/) to handle our authentication requests. Finally, we’ll deploy our app to the internet using [Heroku](https://www.heroku.com/).

![Top Artists](https://d2uusema5elisf.cloudfront.net/courses/build-a-spotify-connected-app/module_00/lesson_00.00/public/assets/screenshot-1.png)

![Top Tracks](https://d2uusema5elisf.cloudfront.net/courses/build-a-spotify-connected-app/module_00/lesson_00.00/public/assets/screenshot-2.png)

![Playlist tracks sorted by tempo](https://d2uusema5elisf.cloudfront.net/courses/build-a-spotify-connected-app/module_00/lesson_00.00/public/assets/screenshot-3.png)

Learn how to build a full stack web app to visualize personalized Spotify data with the help of Node.js, React, Styled Components, and the Spotify Web API.

Build a Spotify Connected App

Principles of REST APIs and how they relate to the Spotify API

How to implement the Spotify OAuth flow with JavaScript

How to use local storage to store auth tokens

How to fetch data from the Spotify API in a React app

How to handle async code with React hooks and async/await

How to efficiently style an app with Styled Components

How to deploy an app with a React front-end and Node.js back-end to Heroku

An API is a set of rules that allow one piece of software to talk to another.

It's like a contract that defines how a consumer will make requests, and what they will receive in return. APIs also make our lives easier by abstracting away complex code and replacing it with simpler, more straightforward code.

For example, think about what happens when you open the Spotify app and play a song. There's probably some code that runs on clicking Play that looks something like this:

 function is an API method that abstracts away things like:

As developers, we don't need to know or care about the lower-level code when we call the 

 method, and that's fine! APIs are here to make our lives easier.

In client-side JavaScript, APIs are usually 

 is the entry point for the API. We can assume that the 

Let's take a look at a more practical example that you've probably encountered before.

---
title: What is an API?
description: An introduction to APIs in web development
privateVideoUrl: https://fullstack.wistia.com/medias/gqfkj6od53
isPublicLesson: true
---

So what are APIs? API stands for **Application Programming Interface**.

:::important

An API is a set of rules that allow one piece of software to talk to another.

:::

It's like a contract that defines how a consumer will make requests, and what they will receive in return. APIs also make our lives easier by abstracting away complex code and replacing it with simpler, more straightforward code.

For example, think about what happens when you open the Spotify app and play a song. There's probably some code that runs on clicking Play that looks something like this:

```js
mediaPlayer.play();
```

That `play()` function is an API method that abstracts away things like:

-   The code needed to retrieve the audio file from the internet or your device
-   The code needed to send audio data to your device

As developers, we don't need to know or care about the lower-level code when we call the `play()` method, and that's fine! APIs are here to make our lives easier.

## How do APIs work?

In client-side JavaScript, APIs are usually **based on objects**. In the pseudocode example above, the `mediaPlayer` **object** is the entry point for the API. We can assume that the `mediaPlayer` object also exposes other API **methods** like `pause()`.

```js
mediaPlayer.pause();
```

Let's take a look at a more practical example that you've probably encountered before.

If you've ever written JavaScript like this:

```js
const element = document.querySelector('.special-class');
```

An introduction to APIs in web development

Learn

The newline Guide to Building Your First GraphQL Server with Node and TypeScript

Teach

Amelia Wattenberger

Author of Fullstack D3

Community

Build a Spotify Connected App

Module 1: Intro & Dev Environment Setup

Introduction:

Start Here

Introduction: (6:46)

Course Introduction

Lesson 1: (6:19)

How to Setup a React Developer Environment with nvm

Module 2: Getting Started with REST APIs & Express

Introduction: (1:04)

Module 1 Introduction

Lesson 1: (4:09)

What is an API?

Lesson 2: (9:38)

Okay, but what is a REST API?

Lesson 3: (3:57)

What is Express? The Basics of the Node.js web framework

Lesson 4: (5:27)

The Basics of Express Router - Requests and Responses

Module 3: Authentication & Authorization with Spotify

Introduction: (0:55)

Module 2 Introduction

Lesson 1: (3:16)

Getting Started with the Spotify Developer Dashboard

Lesson 2: (2:54)

Add nodemon to an Express App to Restart Node Automatically

Lesson 3: (8:56)

What is OAuth and How Does it Work? [with examples]

Lesson 4: (20:00)

How to Implement OAuth Flow in Express and Node.js

Module 4: Setting Up a React Front-End

Introduction: (0:57)

Module 3 Introduction

Lesson 1: (7:59)

How to Pass OAuth Tokens to a React App

Lesson 2: (6:32)

Optimize React and Express.js code with npm concurrently

Module 5: Login State & Front-End Scaffolding

Introduction: (1:18)

Module 4 Introduction

Lesson 1: (13:10)

Using Local Storage to Persist Login State

Lesson 2: (7:11)

How to Fetch Spotify API Data with Credentials with Axios

Lesson 3: (4:18)

How to Setup and Scaffold React Router

Lesson 4: (14:43)

Beginner's Guide to Styled Components in React [with examples]

Module 6: Building & Styling the UI

Introduction: (1:12)

Module 5 Introduction

Lesson 1: (2:03)

How to Build a Login Page in React

Lesson 2: (24:33)

How to Build a Profile Page in React with Spotify API Data

Lesson 3: (14:59)

How to Build a Spotify Top Artists & Top Tracks Page in React

Lesson 4: (11:11)

How to Build a Spotify Playlists Page in React

Lesson 5: (16:50)

How to Build a Spotify Individual Playlist Page in React

Lesson 6: (3:49)

How to Build a React Loading Animation Component

Module 7: Deploying to the Internet

Introduction: (0:39)

Module 6 Introduction

Lesson 1: (5:52)

How to Change Your React Favicon and Social Preview Images

Lesson 2: (12:36)

How to Deploy React to Heroku With a Node.js Server

Lesson 3: (1:43)

How to Add a README.md File to React

Module 8: Course Wrap Up

Lesson 1: (1:59)