CertifyMe Open edX Plugin

Open edX plugin that automatically issues CertifyMe credentials when a learner passes a course. The plugin is a thin bridge — all certificate design, templating, and delivery logic lives in CertifyMe; this package only talks to its REST API and keeps a local record of what was requested.

Features

• Admin-editable configuration (regional server, API token, template ID, credential fields, auto-issue toggle) with full change history.
• Automatic issuance on course completion, via the Open edX Hooks Extension Framework — never blocks an LMS request; all API calls happen in a Celery task.
• Automatic retries with exponential backoff for transient CertifyMe failures; permanent failures are recorded with a reason and can be retried manually from Django admin or the instructor tools page.
• Learner-facing "My Certificates" page (with a link to the CertifyMe-hosted certificate) and a public certificate verification page.
• Course-staff "instructor tools" page: search/filter, manual issue, bulk issue for a whole cohort, retry.

Architecture notes

• Registration: uses edx-platform's native Django plugin architecture (lms.djangoapp / cms.djangoapp entry points + a plugin_app config in apps.py), not a bespoke Tutor plugin. No INSTALLED_APPS edits, no core changes.
• Course-completion signal: subscribes to openedx_events.learning.signals.COURSE_PASSING_STATUS_UPDATED, the Hooks Extension Framework event edx-platform's own grading app emits whenever a learner's passing status changes. Event payload field names have shifted across Open edX releases before; the handler logs the raw payload and fails closed (logs + returns) rather than crashing grade processing if a field is ever missing.
• Student/instructor pages: the real student dashboard and legacy instructor dashboard are edx-platform core templates with no supported third-party injection point (that only exists for the newer React MFEs, a separate frontend project). Rather than patch core templates, this plugin serves its own small, self-contained pages under /certifyme/....
• CertifyMe API contract: confirmed via a real, successful live call (not a guess) — see api.py's module docstring for the full detail. In particular:
  • The working endpoint is the regional one, e.g. POST https://apac.platform.certifyme.dev/api/v2/credential — see servers.py. CertifyMe's public API reference documents a generic https://my.certifyme.online/api/v2/credential which consistently returned 500 in testing against a real account; the regional URL (matching CertifyMe's own Moodle plugin, local_certifyme) worked.
  • Auth is the raw API token in the Authorization header (no Bearer prefix).
  • template_ID must be sent as a JSON number, not a string.
  • No organization-id concept — an account is scoped entirely by its API token + regional server.
  • No dedicated course/completion-date field — course data can only reach the credential via custom_fields (see Configuration below).
  • The response does carry a stable id (credential_UID) and a verification URL (credential_url) — captured as certificate_id/ verification_url on CertifyMeCertificate.
  • No badge, revoke, or resend endpoint is confirmed to exist. CertifyMe's public API reference does document GET/PUT/DELETE by credential id (retrieve/edit/delete) — not yet implemented here, only issuance.

Installation (Tutor)

1. For local development, bind-mount the plugin so Tutor builds it as an editable install and keeps it live-editable in the container:

   tutor mounts add /path/to/openedx-certifyme
   

   For a published release instead, add it to OPENEDX_EXTRA_PIP_REQUIREMENTS:

   tutor config save --append OPENEDX_EXTRA_PIP_REQUIREMENTS=openedx-certifyme==<version>
   

2. Rebuild and restart the images (openedx for tutor local, openedx-dev for tutor dev):

   tutor images build openedx-dev   # or `openedx` for a local/production deploy
   tutor dev launch                 # or `tutor local launch`
   

3. Run migrations (Tutor does this automatically on launch/init; to run by hand):

   tutor dev run lms ./manage.py lms migrate openedx_certifyme
   

4. Make sure a Celery worker for the LMS queue is running (Tutor runs one by default) — automatic issuance depends on it.

5. Verify the plugin loaded: the LMS log should contain CertifyMe plugin loaded (app=openedx_certifyme, ...), and:

   curl http://local.edly.io/certifyme/health
   # {"plugin": "openedx-certifyme", "status": "ok", "version": "0.1.0", "enabled": false}
   

Configuration

Go to Django admin → CertifyMe Configuration → Add. Every save creates a new versioned row (full change history, nothing is overwritten):

There is no "Test connection" action: CertifyMe has no confirmed non-mutating endpoint to check against. Use the instructor tools page's manual Issue Certificate to confirm a token/template pair actually works.

Usage

• Learners: /certifyme/certificates/ lists their certificates, each linking to the CertifyMe-hosted certificate and a local verify page.
• Course staff: /certifyme/instructor/<course_id>/ for manual issue, bulk issue, retry, search, and filtering. Requires course staff/instructor role or platform staff.
• Support/ops: Django admin → CertifyMe Certificates for a read-only audit log (status, retry count, failure reason, raw API response) across all courses, with a bulk Retry action.

Troubleshooting

• Certificates never get issued: check Enabled and Auto issue certificates are both on in the current configuration, and that a Celery worker is consuming the LMS default queue.
• "CertifyMe is not configured yet" errors: an API token is required before any API call will be attempted.
• A specific certificate is stuck FAILED: check failure_reason on the row (Django admin or instructor tools). A 401/403 means the API token is wrong; a 404 means the template ID doesn't exist on the selected server (per CertifyMe's own troubleshooting docs). Permanent failures are not auto-retried — fix the underlying issue, then use the Retry action.
• Health check flooding logs: it logs at DEBUG, not INFO, precisely because liveness probes hit it constantly — raise your log level if you need to see it.
• Certificates stuck retrying with a connection/timeout error: a real successful issuance call was observed taking ~20 seconds (CertifyMe appears to generate and upload the credential image before responding), which is why API timeout / max retries defaults to a 30s timeout — if you've lowered it, raise it back up rather than assuming the API is down.