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Authoring new tools

This document describes the process for authoring new tools for the uniget installer and updater.

Tools are packaged, stored and transported as container images but containerization is not used to execute the tools. After the installation, tools are available natively. For more details, see concepts.

  1. Fork and clone the tools repository
  2. Create a new branch
  3. Create a new directory under tools/ for your tool
  4. Instead of beginning from scratch...
    1. Either add files from @template/ to your new directory
    2. Or copy from an existing tool
  5. Refer to manifest to customize manifest.yaml
  6. If the binary for your tool has a different name, use the binary field in the manifest.yaml. A relative path will be resolved to ${target}/bin. An absolute path should start with the placeholder ${target}

  7. Mind the following when customizing Dockerfile.template

    1. All files must be placed under /uniget_bootstrap
    2. The file requires a final target called prepare

    3. If you rely on an existing tool to package your tool, declare the respective container image first, e.g. make:

      FROM ghcr.io/uniget-org/tools/make:latest AS make

      If you are using a pinned version instead of the latest tag, the tag will not get renovated. This is not recommended.

      The copy the contents into your image:

      COPY --from=make / /usr/local

      Also add these dependencies to the build_dependencies field in manifest.yaml

    4. If you rely on an existing tool to execute your tool (e.g. go or make), add the dependencies to the runtime_dependencies field in manifest.yaml

    5. Examples for many scenarios are included in @template/Dockerfile.template
    6. Build the container image for your new tool: make TOOL--debug
    7. Explore the contents interactively
    8. Determine the command to extract the version
    9. Update the version field in your manifest.yaml. Use the placefolder ${binary} instead of the binary name
    10. Update the Renovate configuration: make renovate.json
    11. Create a pull request