Automatic SSL in development

active/0000-devcert-ssl.md

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+- Start Date: 2017-04-28
+- RFC PR: (leave this empty)
+
+# Summary
+
+Add support for on-the-fly SSL certificates in development via devcert.
+
+# Motivation
+
+Many of the newest web platform features (i.e. service workers) require HTTPS transport. Generating
+SSL/TLS certificates for local development is time consuming, and browsers will display scary
+interstitials warning of untrusted certificates.
+
+ [Devcert](/~https://github.com/davewasmer/devcert) is a library that automates the process of
+ installing a root certificate authority and generating app certificates signed by this trusted
+ root authority. This would significantly lower the barriers to entry for developing with these
+ new web platform features.
+
+# Detailed design
+
+[Devcert](/~https://github.com/davewasmer/devcert) does most of the cross-platform heavy lifting
+here. We would keep the existing command line flags as well, and simply tweak their existing
+behavior: if `--ssl` is provided without corresponding `--ssl-key` and `--ssl-cert`, then the
+CLI would invoke devcert to generate a certificate on the fly using the app name.
+
+A simplified example implementation:
+
+```js
+if (options.ssl) {
+  if (options.sslKey && options.sslCert) {
+    // this is the current functionality
+  } else {
+    getDevelopmentCertificates(appName, { installCertutil: true }).then((ssl) => {
+      https.createServer(ssl, handler);
+    });
+  }
+}
+```
+
+# How We Teach This
+
+Especially for frontend development, SSL in dev is typically motivated by wanting to unlock the
+above-mentioned web platform features, so some people many discover this "along the way" to
+implementing something like service workers. The Ember CLI docs would be updated to reflect the
+new argument behavior, and tutorials might call out the SSL flags.
+
+But overall, the goal here is to actually remove a step in existing workflows (manual management of
+dev SSL certificates), so the need for learning changes here is limited.
+
+# Drawbacks
+
+* Introduces additional dependencies
+* Devcert requires elevated permissions on first run (once per machine only). This might be a bit
+scary/surprising, and should be treated with caution
+* From our side, this
+
+# Alternatives
+
+I'm not aware of any other libraries like devcert. The alternative here seems to be the status quo:
+leave SSL certificate management up to the developer.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+
+While I've done my best to ensure devcert's implementation is safe for use, I'm not an SSL/TLS
+expert. We should be careful that nothing here exposes the developer or their machine to undue risks.