Challenges We Ran Into

One of the main challenges we encountered during the development of the News Summarizer with Groq was integrating the Groq API for text summarization. Initially, our backend code was not communicating properly with the Groq API, resulting in failed requests and no summaries being returned. After careful debugging, we realized that the endpoint URL we were using was incorrect. The API endpoint was missing the /openai/ segment, which caused repeated 404 errors.

To resolve this, we revisited the official Groq documentation and updated our code to use the correct endpoint: https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions.
Once this change was implemented, the backend was able to successfully receive summaries from the Groq API.

Another hurdle was managing CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) issues between the frontend and backend. The browser was blocking requests from the frontend to the Flask backend. We addressed this by enabling CORS in our Flask application, which allowed seamless communication between the two components.

Additionally, we focused on securely managing the API key by loading it from a .env file rather than hardcoding it. This not only enhanced security but also made local development and deployment more manageable.

Through these challenges, we learned the importance of carefully reading API documentation, implementing robust error handling, and maintaining secure coding practices. Each hurdle improved our debugging skills and strengthened our teamwork.