queens-hacks / caas

Compilation as a service

CaaS

Compilation as a Service. Instead of having to install node.js to compile LESS files, or Ruby to compile SASS files, now you can just send those files to the cloud and have it compile them for you!

Using the service

CLI One-liner with curl

tar -cz in_dir | curl -sfF data=@- http://precomp.ca/sass | tar zxf - -C out_dir/

This will take the contents of in_dir, compress them, send them to the SASS CaaS, then output the resulting compiled code to out_dir.

The response will be the compiled css files alongside the SASS files.

Using the client

The client will automatically watch a directory and when anything changes, use the CaaS to compile the changes, and write out the result.

Config

The client is configured using YAML.

Example config:

key: "s0mek3yh3re"
tasks:
  make_css:
    compiler: "less"
    input: "project/less"
    output: "project/css"
    extras:
      targets: ["main.less", "styles.less"]
      logging: off

  compile_coffee:
    compiler: "coffee"
    input: "project/coffee"
    output: "project/js"

  compile_c:
    compiler: "gccmake"
    input: "helloworld"
    output: "helloworld/bin"
    extras:
      targets: ['hello.out']

Things to keep in mind:

• Indentation is important. Use tabs or spaces to indent, but not both.
• The key is your unique identification key that can be found on your account page.
• make_css, compile_coffee, and compile_c are the names of the watch jobs.
• compiler is the type of compiler to use.
• The input parameter can be a single file or a directory.
• The output parameter is always treated as a folder. If you only want to output a single file, use the parent directory instead of the filename.
• C programs must have a makefile in the project directory.

Key/value pairs under the extras parameter are all optional and differ based on the type of compilation being done.

• logging - Setting this to off will disable the generation of the __precomp__ directory in the output folder.
• Type-specific targets overrides:
  • SAAS and SCSS will by default compile everything in the directory. Use targets to specify which files to compile.
  • LESS will by default attempt to compile styles.less. Use targets to specify other LESS files.
  • C compilations will parse the makefile to guess which files to return after compilation. Use targets to specify which files to return after compilation.

Responses

On every request the client will recieve a string representing the bytes of a compressed file.

Inside the compressed file will be:

• Compiled files. The results of the compilation will be in the root of the compressed file so when extracted, the files go in the specified directory.
• Unless logging has been turned off with the logging extra (see above), a folder named __precomp__ will be generated. This folder contains a log of any messages the compilation process produced and other data. Useful for debugging.

The status code of the response is the same as usual, except for:

• 400 - This means the complation failed because of an incorrect API call, not a failed compilation.
• 403 - The client failed to provide an authorization key.
• 200 - The compilation was attempted. Compiled files may be in the compressed file. See the log and warning HTTP header for more details.

Setting up the server

1. Create an application on github
   • Pick anything for all the fields except the last one.
   • set Authorization callback URL to http://localhost:5000/authorized
2. Create a database at MongoHQ or any online mongo as a service or run mongo locally.
3. Create and activate a Python 3.3+ virtualenv. See virtualenv.org.
4. Install requirements with $ pip install -r requirements-server.txt.
5. Configure the app. You can either create a config.py file, or export the variables to the environment. You must set these variables:

Variable	Description
SECRET_KEY	Must be something, but for local development it can be anything
DEBUG	You'll probably want this to be True for local development
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID	GitHub gives you this after registering your application on GitHub
GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET	Same deal
MONGO_URI	Whatever you got from MongoHQ or wherever.
DO_CLIENT_ID	Your Digital Ocean client ID.
DO_API_KEY	Your Digital Ocean API key.

After these steps, you should be able to just:

(venv) $ python manage.py runserver

and play around at localhost:5000

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