Face Attendance

A modern Flask attendance application with staff authentication, role-based access control, face enrollment, camera-based recognition, and attendance reporting.

Roles

admin: manages staff accounts, enrolls people, records attendance, and views reports.
operator: enrolls people, uses the attendance kiosk, and views reports.
viewer: read-only access to people and attendance reports.

Only admins can create staff accounts.

Requirements

Python 3.11 or 3.12 is recommended for production.
Native build prerequisites for face-recognition/dlib may be required by your OS.
A production WSGI server such as Gunicorn on Linux or Waitress on Windows.

Setup

py -3.12 -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -r requirements.txt
Copy-Item .env.example .env

Edit .env and set a strong SECRET_KEY. For production, set APP_ENV=production and use a durable database URL.

Database

Initialize the database with migrations:

$env:FLASK_APP = "wsgi:app"
flask db upgrade
flask create-admin

Run Locally

$env:FLASK_APP = "wsgi:app"
flask run

Open http://127.0.0.1:5000 and sign in with the admin account created above.

Tests

pytest

The tests use an isolated SQLite database and disable CSRF only for test requests.

Production Notes

Use HTTPS. Production config enables secure cookies.
Set SECRET_KEY, DATABASE_URL, and APP_ENV=production.
Run flask db upgrade during deployment.
Run behind a reverse proxy that forwards HTTPS headers correctly.
Treat face encodings as biometric data. Restrict database access, define a retention policy, and back up securely.

What Changed

Replaced the legacy single-file Flask script with an application factory and Blueprints.
Added SQLAlchemy models and Alembic migrations.
Added Flask-Login authentication, admin-created accounts, password hashing, and role checks.
Replaced raw SQL with ORM queries.
Removed global enrollment state.
Rebuilt the UI in English with reusable templates and responsive Bootstrap-based layouts.
Added CSRF protection, secure cookie settings, security headers, validation, and error pages.
Added pytest coverage for authentication, roles, models, and attendance recording.

2.3 KiB Raw Blame History