Summary:
This makes it possible to configure a SendGrid-based Notifier
instance via a JSON configuration file.
Test Plan: Tested manually.
Reviewers: alexmojaki
Reviewed By: alexmojaki
Subscribers: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3432
Summary: For grist-ee, expect an activation key in environment variable `GRIST_ACTIVATION` or in a file pointed to by `GRIST_ACTIVATION_FILE`. In absence of key, start a 30-day trial, during which a banner is shown. Once trial expires, installation goes into document-read-only mode.
Test Plan: added a test
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3426
Summary:
Currently, we have two ways that we deliver Grist. One is grist-core,
which has simple defaults and is relatively easy for third parties to
deploy. The second is our internal build for our SaaS, which is the
opposite. For self-managed Grist, a planned paid on-premise version
of Grist, I adopt the following approach:
* Use the `grist-core` build mechanism, extending it to accept an
overlay of extra code if present.
* Extra code is supplied in a self-contained `ext` directory, with
an `ext/app` directory that is of same structure as core `app`
and `stubs/app`.
* The `ext` directory also contains information about extra
node dependencies needed beyond that of `grist-core`.
* The `ext` directory is contained within our monorepo rather than
`grist-core` since it may contain material not under the Apache
license.
Docker builds are achieved in our monorepo by using the `--build-context`
functionality to add in `ext` during the regular `grist-core` build:
```
docker buildx build --load -t gristlabs/grist-ee --build-context=ext=../ext .
```
Incremental builds in our monorepo are achieved with the `build_core.sh` helper,
like:
```
buildtools/build_core.sh /tmp/self-managed
cd /tmp/self-managed
yarn start
```
The initial `ext` directory contains material for snapshotting to S3.
If you build the docker image as above, and have S3 access, you can
do something like:
```
docker run -p 8484:8484 --env GRIST_SESSION_SECRET=a-secret \
--env GRIST_DOCS_S3_BUCKET=grist-docs-test \
--env GRIST_DOCS_S3_PREFIX=self-managed \
-v $HOME/.aws:/root/.aws -it gristlabs/grist-ee
```
This will start a version of Grist that is like `grist-core` but with
S3 snapshots enabled. To release this code to `grist-core`, it would
just need to move from `ext/app` to `app` within core.
I tried a lot of ways of organizing self-managed Grist, and this was
what made me happiest. There are a lot of trade-offs, but here is what
I was looking for:
* Only OSS-code in grist-core. Adding mixed-license material there
feels unfair to people already working with the repo. That said,
a possible future is to move away from our private monorepo to
a public mixed-licence repo, which could have the same relationship
with grist-core as the monorepo has.
* Minimal differences between self-managed builds and one of our
existing builds, ideally hewing as close to grist-core as possible
for ease of documentation, debugging, and maintenance.
* Ideally, docker builds without copying files around (the new
`--build-context` functionality made that possible).
* Compatibility with monorepo build.
Expressing dependencies of the extra code in `ext` proved tricky to
do in a clean way. Yarn/npm fought me every step of the way - everything
related to optional dependencies was unsatisfactory in some respect.
Yarn2 is flexible but smells like it might be overreach. In the end,
organizing to install non-core dependencies one directory up from the
main build was a good simple trick that saved my bacon.
This diff gets us to the point of building `grist-ee` images conveniently,
but there isn't a public repo people can go look at to see its source. This
could be generated by taking `grist-core`, adding the `ext` directory
to it, and pushing to a distinct repository. I'm not in a hurry to do that,
since a PR to that repo would be hard to sync with our monorepo and
`grist-core`. Also, we don't have any licensing text ready for the `ext`
directory. So leaving that for future work.
Test Plan: manual
Reviewers: georgegevoian, alexmojaki
Reviewed By: georgegevoian, alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3415
Summary:
Currently, Grist behind a reverse proxy will generate many
needless redirects via `http`, and can't be used with only
port 443. This diff centralizes generation of these redirects
and uses the protocol in APP_HOME_URL if it is set.
Test Plan:
manually tested by rebuilding grist-core and
doing a reverse proxy deployment that had no support for
port 80. Prior to this change, there are lots of problems;
after, the site works as expected.
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3400
Summary:
This avoids an extra database query to look up the user's current
name, by capturing it at the moment their user id is queried.
Test Plan: existing test for user.Name changes continues to pass
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3381
Summary: The name of a user for actions made using a websocket until now could be inconsistent with that seen by other means. This draws the name from the database, rather than from session information that may have been cached from an identity provider.
Test Plan: added test
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3379
Summary:
- Include docId when available for client-side error reporting
- Distinguish sandbox crashes from forced exits
Test Plan: Tested manually
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3373
Summary:
The logic for calculating redirects wasn't quite right for Grist
configured to use a single domain, with teams encoded in the path.
This fixes it.
Test Plan: tested manually with docker compose and /etc/hosts
Reviewers: georgegevoian
Reviewed By: georgegevoian
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3359
Summary:
This fleshes out header-based authentication a little more to
work with traefik-forward-auth.
Test Plan: manually tested
Reviewers: georgegevoian
Reviewed By: georgegevoian
Subscribers: alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3348
Summary:
Adds a new Grist login page to the login app, and replaces the
server-side Cognito Google Sign-In flow with Google's own OAuth flow.
Test Plan: Browser and server tests.
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3332
Summary:
Firstly I just wanted some more consistency and less repetition in places where Documents are retrieved from the DB, so it's more obvious when code differs from the norm. Main changes for that part:
- Let HomeDBManager accept a `Request` directly and convert it to a `Scope`, and use this in a few places.
- `getScope` tries `req.docAuth.docId` if `req.params` doesn't have a docId.
I also refactored how `_createActiveDoc` gets the document URL, separating out getting the document from getting a URL for it. This is because I want to use that document object in a future diff, but I also just find it cleaner. Notable changes for that:
- Extracted a new method `HomeDBManager.getRawDocById` as an alternative to `getDoc` that's explicitly for when you only have a document ID.
- Removed the interface method `GristServer.getDocUrl` and its two implementations because it wasn't used elsewhere and it didn't really add anything on top of getting a doc (now done by `getRawDocById`) and `getResourceUrl`.
- Between `cachedDoc` and `getRawDocById` (which represent previously existing code paths) also try `getDoc(getScope(docSession.req))`, which is new, because it seems better to only `getRawDocById` as a last resort.
Test Plan: Existing tests
Reviewers: georgegevoian
Reviewed By: georgegevoian
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3328
Summary:
Adds Google Tag Manager snippet to all login pages, and a new user
preference, recordSignUpEvent, that's set to true on first sign-in. The
client now checks for this preference, and if true, dynamically loads
Google Tag Manager to record a sign-up event. Afterwards, it removes
the preference.
Test Plan: Tested manually.
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3319
Summary:
Custom widget into page is served from a homeUrl instead
of untrusted URL, which might be not used in grist-core.
Test Plan: manual test
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3307
Summary:
Importing a .grist document is implemented in a somewhat clunky way, in a multi-worker setup.
* First a random worker receives the upload, and updates Grist's various stores appropriately (database, redis, s3).
* Then a random worker is assigned to serve the document.
If the worker serving the document fails, there is a chance the it will end up assigned to the worker that handled its upload. Currently the worker will misbehave in this case. This diff:
* Ports a multi-worker test from test/home to run in test/s3, and adds a test simulating a bad scenario seen in the wild.
* Fixes persistence of any existing document checksum in redis when a worker is assigned.
* Adds a check when assigned a document to serve, and finding that document already cached locally. It isn't safe to rely only on the document checksum in redis, since that may have expired.
* Explicitly claims the document on the uploading worker, so this situation becomes even less likely to arise.
Test Plan: added test
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3305
Summary:
The page isn't yet linked to from anywhere in the UI, but
will be soon, once the new login page is ready. The page
can still be accessed at login-[s].getgrist.com/forgot-password,
and the flow is similar to the one used by Cognito's hosted UI.
Also refactors much of the existing login app code into smaller
files with less duplication, tweaks password validation to be closer
to Cognito's requirements, and polishes various parts of the UI,
like the verified page CSS, and the form inputs.
Test Plan: Browser, server and project tests.
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Subscribers: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3296
Summary:
This makes many small changes so that Grist is less fussy to run as a single instance behind a reverse proxy. Some users had difficulty with the self-connections Grist would make, due to internal network setup, and since these are unnecessary in any case in this scenario, they are now optimized away. Likewise some users had difficulties related to doc worker urls, which are now also optimized away. With these changes, users should be able to get a lot further on first try, at least far enough to open and edit documents.
The `GRIST_SINGLE_ORG` setting was proving a bit confusing, since it appeared to only work when set to `docs`. This diff
adds a check for whether the specified org exists, and if not, it creates it. This still depends on having a user email to make as the owner of the team, so there could be remaining difficulties there.
Test Plan: tested manually with nginx
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3299
Summary: Removes code that was marked for removal.
Test Plan: Existing tests still pass.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3289
Summary:
Core doesn't redirect to Cognito or our own sign-up page
when clicking 'sign up' on the welcome screen. Instead, it
redirects to the test login page.
Test Plan: N/A (fixing test)
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3298
Summary: When user 2FA status is changed, we now send out emails via SendGrid.
Test Plan: Server tests.
Reviewers: alexmojaki
Reviewed By: alexmojaki
Subscribers: alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3280
Summary:
Since the new Grist sign-up page has a required field for
name, we can now skip the welcome page asking for the
same thing. Code and tests that can be removed later are
marked with TODOs.
Test Plan: Browser tests.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3266
Summary:
Available at login.getgrist.com/signup, the new sign-up page
includes similar options available on the hosted Cognito sign-up
page, such as support for registering with Google. All previous
redirects to Cognito for sign-up should now redirect to the new
Grist sign-up page.
Login is still handled with the hosted Cognito login page, and there
is a link to go there from the new sign-up page.
Test Plan: Browser, project and server tests.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3249
Summary:
As designed in https://grist.quip.com/fZSrAnJKgO5j/Add-or-Update-Records-API
Current `POST /records` adds records, and `PATCH /records` updates them by row ID. This adds `PUT /records` to 'upsert' records, applying the AddOrUpdate user action. PUT was chosen because it's idempotent. Using a separate method (instead of inferring based on the request body) also cleanly separates validation, documentation, etc.
The name `require` for the new property was suggested by Paul because `where` isn't very clear when adding records.
Test Plan: New DocApi tests
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3251
Summary:
stop providing a default document id DOC_ID_NEW_USER_INFO for
surveying, and don't show survey if a document id is not available.
Test Plan: existing tests pass; grist-core checked
Reviewers: georgegevoian
Reviewed By: georgegevoian
Subscribers: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3225
Summary:
- WelcomeQuestions implements the new popup.
- Popup shows up on any doc-list page, the first time the user visits one after
signing up and setting their name.
- Submits responses to the same "New User Questions" doc, which has been
changed to accept two new columns (ChoiceList of use_cases, and Text for
use_other).
- Improve modals on mobile along the way.
Test Plan: Added browser tests and tested manually
Reviewers: alexmojaki
Reviewed By: alexmojaki
Subscribers: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3213
Summary:
The user profile dialog is now a separate page, in preparation
for upcoming work to enable MFA. This commit also contains
some MFA changes, but the UI is currently disabled and the
implementation is limited to software tokens (TOTP) only.
Test Plan:
Updated browser tests for new profile page. Tests for MFAConfig
and CognitoClient will be added in a later diff, once the UI is enabled.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Subscribers: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3199
Summary:
* Tie build and run-time docker base images to a consistent version (buster)
* Extend the test login system activated by GRIST_TEST_LOGIN to ease porting tests that currently rely on cognito (many)
* Make org resets work in absence of billing endpoints
* When in-memory session caches are used, add missing invalidation steps
* Pass org information through sign-ups/sign-ins more carefully
* For CORS, explicitly trust GRIST_HOST origin when set
* Move some fixtures and tests to core, focussing on tests that cover existing failures or are in the set of tests run on deployments
* Retain regular `test` target to run the test suite directly, without docker
* Add a `test:smoke` target to run a single simple test without `GRIST_TEST_LOGIN` activated
* Add a `test:docker` target to run the tests against a grist-core docker image - since tests rely on certain fixture teams/docs, added `TEST_SUPPORT_API_KEY` and `TEST_ADD_SAMPLES` flags to ease porting
The tests ported were `nbrowser` tests: `ActionLog.ts` (the first test I tend to port to anything, out of habit), `Fork.ts` (exercises a lot of doc creation paths), `HomeIntro.ts` (a lot of DocMenu exercise), and `DuplicateDocument.ts` (covers a feature known to be failing prior to this diff, the CORS tweak resolves it).
Test Plan: Manually tested via `buildtools/build_core.sh`. In follow up, I want to add running the `test:docker` target in grist-core's workflows. In jenkins, only the smoke test is run. There'd be an argument for running all tests, but they include particularly slow tests, and are duplicates of tests already run (in different configuration admittedly), so I'd like to try first just using them in grist-core to gate updates to any packaged version of Grist (the docker image currently).
Reviewers: alexmojaki
Reviewed By: alexmojaki
Subscribers: alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3176
Summary:
Exposing custom widgets as a dropdown menu in custom section configuration panel.
Adding new environmental variable GRIST_WIDGET_LIST_URL that points to a
json file with an array of available widgets. When not present, custom widget menu is
hidden, exposing only Custom URL option.
Available widget list can be fetched from:
https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-widget/releases/download/latest/manifest.json
Test Plan: New tests, and updated old ones.
Reviewers: paulfitz, dsagal
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3127
Summary:
Exports used to show generic message on error.
Adding error description to the message.
Test Plan: Updated tests
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3157
Summary:
The express-session middleware, in its regular configuration, will
only set a cookie response header at the beginninng of a session or
when the session contents have changed. It won't set the header if
only the expiration time is changed. This diff uses a dummy `alive`
field to nudge the middleware into setting the header consistently.
Test Plan: tested manually
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3153
Summary:
The document collecting new user info
(https://docs.getgrist.com/doc/GristNewUserInfo) got very slow, taking 40+
seconds for cold open. Sign-up submissions had to wait this time to proceed to
next step, because they waited for the write to this doc, which was blocked on
the Calculate action to complete.
Two changes were made: one to remove all expensive columns and summaries in the
actual doc, so the doc is back to opening in single seconds, and times should
be acceptable now.
The second change is this diff: to avoid waiting for the write step, so that it
doesn't affect users even if it gets slow again.
Test Plan: Existing test continues to work with a minor reliability tweak.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3103
Summary:
- Update cookie module, to support modern sameSite settings
- Add a new cookie, grist_sid_status with less-sensitive value, to let less-trusted subdomains know if user is signed in
- The new cookie is kept in-sync with the session cookie.
- For a user signed in once, allow auto-signin is appropriate.
- For a user signed in with multiple accounts, show a page to select which account to use.
- Move css stylings for rendering users to a separate module.
Test Plan: Added a test case with a simulated Discourse page to test redirects and account-selection page.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3047
Summary:
This adds a `user:delete` target to the `cli.sh` tool. The desired user will be deleted from our database, from sendgrid, and from cognito.
There is code for scrubbing the user from team sites, but it isn't yet activated, I'm leaving finalizing and writing tests for it for follow-up.
Test Plan: tested manually
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3043
Summary: This tests site deletion with and without a plan.
Test Plan: adding tests
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3017
Summary:
The endpoints for exporting CSV and Excel are now under
/api/docs/:docId/ and are forwarded to a doc worker for export.
The Share Menu has been updated to use the new endpoints.
Test Plan: No new tests. Existing tests that verify endpoints work correctly.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Subscribers: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D3007
Summary:
* Remove adjustSession hack, interfering with loading docs under saml.
* Allow the anonymous user to receive an empty list of workspaces for
the merged org.
* Behave better on first page load when org is in path - this used to
fail because of lack of cookie. This is very visible in grist-core,
as a failure to load localhost:8484 on first visit.
* Mark cookie explicitly as SameSite=Lax to remove a warning in firefox.
* Make errorPages available in grist-core.
This changes the default behavior of grist-core to now start off in
anonymous mode, with an explicit sign-in step available. If SAML is not configured,
the sign-in operation will unconditionally sign the user in as a default
user, without any password check or other security. The user email is
taken from GRIST_DEFAULT_EMAIL if set. This is a significant change, but
makes anonymous mode available in grist-core (which is convenient
for testing) and makes behavior with and without SAML much more consistent.
Test Plan: updated test; manual (time to start adding grist-core tests though!)
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2980
Summary:
SAML support had broken due to SameSite changes in browsers. This
makes it work again, and tests it against Auth0 (now owned by Okta).
Logging in and out works. The logged out state is confusing, and may
not be complete. The "Add Account" menu item doesn't work.
But with this, an important part of self-hosting becomes easier.
SAML support works also in grist-core, for site pages, but there
is a glitch on document pages that I'll look into separately.
Test Plan: tested manually
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2976
Summary: Importing from google drive from home screen (also for anonymous users)
Test Plan: Browser tests
Reviewers: dsagal, paulfitz
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2943
Summary:
When importing from url, user types a url for google spreadsheet,
Grist will switch to Google Drive plugin to allow user to choose file manualy.
Test Plan: Browser tests
Reviewers: paulfitz, dsagal
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2945
Summary:
Google Auth popup wasn't able to resolve origin from gristConfig.
Moving this reponsability to server side, where it gets calculated from initial request.
Test Plan: n/a
Reviewers: dsagal, paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2935
Summary:
Implementing export to excel and send to Google Drive feature.
As part of this feature few things were implemented:
- Server side google authentication exposed on url: (docs, docs-s, or localhost:8080)/auth/google
- Exporting grist documents as an excel file (xlsx)
- Storing exported grist document (in excel format) in Google Drive as a spreadsheet document.
Server side google authentication requires one new environmental variables
- GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET (required) used by authentication handler
Test Plan: Browser tests for exporting to excel.
Reviewers: paulfitz, dsagal
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2924
Summary:
Finishing implementation for google drive plugin.
- Refactoring plugin code to make it more robust and to follow grist ux
- Changing the way server hosts untrusted user content, from different domain to different port
Test Plan: Browser tests
Reviewers: dsagal, paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2881
Summary:
In the past, Cognito sign-ins were intended to give authorization to some AWS
services (like SQS); various tokens were stored in the session for this
purpose. This is no longer used. Profiles from Cognito now serve a limited
purpose: first-time initialization of name and picture, and keeping track of
which login method was used. For these remaining needs, ScopedSession is
sufficient.
Test Plan:
Existing test pass. Tested manually that logins work with Google and
Email + Password. Tested manually that on a clean database, name and picture
are picked up from a Google Login.
Reviewers: paulfitz
Reviewed By: paulfitz
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2907
Summary: Removed test/aws/, most of app/server/lib/, 3 dirs in app/lambda/, corresponding tests, and more!
Test Plan: a lot of this is quite the opposite...
Reviewers: dsagal, paulfitz
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2894
Summary:
Current appsumo sign-up flow doesn't reach the billing pages.
This diff nudges user on through that extra step.
It also tweaks plan summaries to say what special appsumo
features are in effect (member count prepaid for).
Test Plan: manual
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2882
Summary:
This adds a new landing page for cognito sign-up, intended for
use by new appsumo users.
Their email address is pre-filled and locked down, and sign-up
is by entering a password.
The page is very crude compared to hosted cognito - especially
in error reporting! - but having the address filled in more
than makes up for that.
The flow does not quite connect with the new billing signup.
I think we can do that through the regular "welcome" process,
which will list the user's team site. When the user visits
that site, we could detect that we are on a site with no
domain set yet and for which the user is a billing manager,
and trigger a visit to the appropriate billing page.
Test Plan: manual - hard to test through cognito email step
Reviewers: dsagal
Reviewed By: dsagal
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2880
Summary:
This adds appsumo /token and /notification endpoints, with some
tests. The stub implementation is sufficient for AppSumo
activation to succeed (when exposed via port forwarding for testing).
It needs fleshing out:
* Implement upgrade/downgrade/refund and stripe subscription.
* Implement custom landing page and flow.
Test Plan: added tests
Reviewers: dsagal, georgegevoian
Reviewed By: dsagal
Subscribers: alexmojaki
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2864
Summary:
The `_repairWorkspaceGuests` method is slow for workspaces with large numbers of documents. It makes a query that produces a lot of rows. The query itself is tolerable, but TypeORM processing uses enough CPU to be a likely culprit in some production instability. This diff splits the query into two pieces that are logically independent, but which when combined were resulting in the number of rows being the product of the two pieces. Once split, there is also a where clause that can be applied to one of the pieces.
The purpose of the method is to add every user that a document within a workspace is shared with to a "guest" group of the workspace itself. The design of "guest" groups is not ideal, but this diff leaves the design unchanged and is intended only to speed up operation.
Made some small tweaks to the timing of a flakey test, and temporarily recreated the `samples` directory removed in a previous diff (this is currently breaking tests badly on a fresh worker without a `samples` directory lying around)
Test Plan: added test; existing tests pass
Reviewers: jarek
Reviewed By: jarek
Differential Revision: https://phab.getgrist.com/D2844
