ember-cli-ecosystem-installer

ember-cli-ecosystem-installer

• Description
• Usage
• QA
• Development

Description

Tool to install/uninstall the ecosystem packages.

Concept

The idea is to define an LTS file that will contain all the packages that are part of the ecosystem you are trying to build. The installer will prompt the user to choose the ecosystem packages to install/uninstall and choose the application specific packages (all the packages that are not included in the ecosystem) to keep/uninstall.

What problems is this application solving?

• You will like to standardize the packages that are used by your applications?
• You are building a set of packages that your applications should use?
• You will like to easily switch from a version of an ecosystem to another version?
• You will like to create simple grouping of packages and offer those grouping as features to install in a click?
• You will like to enforce the usage of some particular packages?

If you answered yes to any of the questions then maybe this application is for you.

Definitions

• LTS: Long-term support.
• LTS file: File that is defining the content of an ecosystem.
• Ecosystem: Set of npm packages that composed a standard environment.
• LTS ecosystem features: A set of packages and group that are recommended to install in the target application/addon.
• Application specific packages: A set of packages that are installed on the target application and that are not in the LTS ecosystem recommended features.

Usage

You need to follow a few steps to use this tool:

1. Create an ecosystem that is dependent on this installer
2. Install the ecosystem

Note: This tool doesn't contain any LTS ecosystem file. You will have to create one.

Create an ecosystem

You can follow the steps to create an addon that will contain your LTS ecosystem file and use the installer to install the ecosystem.

1. Create an Ember addon to contain your LTS ecosystem file

   We recommend to add this addon to a repository to be able to version your LTS ecosystem file.
   

2. Add an LTS file (lts.json) at the root of your new addon and add the ecosystem content (File format)

3. Add the following keyword in your package.json: ember-cli-ecosystem-lts

     "keywords": [
       ...
       "ember-cli-ecosystem-lts",
       ...
     ],
   

4. Create a blueprint for your addon

   ember g blueprint <addon-name>
   

5. Go to /blueprints/<addon-name>/index.js and add the following

     ...
     normalizeEntityName: function () {
       // this prevents an error when the entityName is
       // not specified (since that doesn't actually matter
       // to us
     },
     afterInstall: function () {
       return this.addAddonsToProject({ packages: [{name: 'ember-cli-ecosystem-installer'}] })
     }
     ...
   

Install the ecosystem

Once these steps are done you will simply have install your addon in the target application:

cd <your-application>
ember install <addon-name>

This command will do the following:

1. Start the installation of your addon on the application and copy the lts.json file.
2. Run your blueprint and install the ember-cli-ecosystem-installer tool.
3. The tool will read the package.json file of your target application and get the name of all the packages that contains the keyword ember-cli-ecosystem-lts
4. The tool will get the lts.json file for each package that contains that keyword and merge all the LTS files. The merged result is the LTS ecosystem content.
5. The tool will finally prompt the user to install the ecosystem content.
   • On the install of ember-cli-ecosystem-installer the user will be requested to:
     1. Select LTS ecosystem features(packages/groups of packages) to install/uninstall
     2. Confirm the selection
     3. Select the application specific packages to keep/uninstall
     4. Confirm the selection
   • Once the user selections are confirmed:
     1. Uninstall packages
     2. Install packages

LTS file format

It's important to respect the lts.json file format for this installer to work properly.

Package

You can specify a package that is part of the ecosystem like this

{
  "package-name": "target"
}

Group

You can specify a group of packages that is part of the ecosystem like this

{
  "group-name": {
    "packages": {
      "package-name-1": "target1",
      "package-name-2": "target2",
    }
  }
}

Mandatory/Optional

Every packages and group are optional by default. You can specify mandatory packages/groups like this

{
  "mandatory": {
    "package-name": "target",
    "group-name": {
      "packages": {
        "package-name-1": "target1",
        "package-name-2": "target2",
      }
    }
  }
}

Example

In the following example the package1 and group1 are mandatory and package4 and group2 are optional. A group is install or uninstall in totality. You cannot install individual pieces of a group.

{
  "mandatory": {
    "package1": "1.0.0",
    "group1": {
      "packages": {
        "package2": "~1.0.0",
        "package3": "^1.0.0",
      }
    }
  },
  "package4": "2.1.2",
  "group2": {
    "packages": {
      "package5": "1.2.20"
    }
  }
}

Q/A

Is it possible to have a hierarchy of ecosystem?

Yes, you can create an addon that will have an lts.json file let's call this addon James. Then you can create an addon that will have an lts.json file let's call this other addon Bond. We can use the same procedure define above to create the ecosystem. The only difference is the blueprint's content.

James's blueprint

  ...
  afterInstall: function () {
    return this.addAddonsToProject({ packages: [{name: 'ember-cli-ecosystem-installer'}] })
  }
  ...

Bond's blueprint

  ...
  afterInstall: function () {
    return this.addAddonsToProject({ packages: [{name: 'James'}] })
  }
  ...

You are getting something like this:

Bond ---depend---> James ---depend---> ember-cli-ecosystem-installer

Then you can install Bond

ember install Bond

Bond will be installed and the lts.json file from Bond will be copied. Then James will be installed and the lts.json file from James will be copied. Then the installer will be installed and it will merge the file from Bond and James and start the installation of the ecosystem which will contain the content of James's LTS file and Bond's LTS file.

Development

Setup

git clone [e-mail]:ciena-blueplanet/ember-cli-ecosystem-installer.git
cd ember-cli-ecosystem-installer
npm install && bower install

Testing

Run npm run test from the root of the project to run linting checks as well as execute the test suite and output code coverage.

Implementation details

There is a few basic concepts to understand before adding features/fixing issues on this tool.

1. We will create groups based on the content of the files. All the single packages (optional and mandatory) like "my-package": "1.0.0" will be converted in groups containing a single package. We are doing this to simplify and standardize the handling of groups and single package.

2. We are getting the state of the groups based on the state of the packages that composed that group. Here is a table with the expected states:

   • Packages state => Group state
     • New => New
     • Need update => Need update
     • Installed => Installed
     • New + need update => Need update
     • New + installed => Need update
     • Installed => Need update

3. The operations/actions we are doing on a package/group depends on the step and on the selection.

   In the first step, LTS features install/uninstall

   • State => Action (selected)
     • New => Overwrite
     • Need update => Overwrite
     • installed => Overwrite
   • State => Action (not selected)
     • New => Skip
     • Need update => Skip
     • Installed => Remove (uninstall)

   In the second step, application specific packages keep/uninstall (packages not in the LTS)

   • State => Action (selected)
     • Installed => Identical (kee)
   • StateAction (not selected)
     • Installed => Remove (uninstall)