vijayvishy / index

StackStorm Exchange pack index

StackStorm Exchange Index

Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen.

I am going to tell you all about the StackStorm Exchange Index, a sacred tome holding detailed accounts of every StackStorm pack that the Order deemed worthy of the world to see.

Structure

The index is currently compiled into a single JSON object and stored as a file: v1/index.json. Packs are identified by names, and their metadata is copied as is from the pack.yaml files. repo_url is the only property that is stored in the index but not in pack.yaml; it contains, quite unsurprisingly, a URL for the git repository to clone the pack from.

This is a simplified index example:

{
  "metadata": {
    "generated_ts": 1476974445,
    "hash": "79c790a6ca3c22783f4adabd5c163059",
  },
  "packs": {
    "aws": {
      "name": "aws",
      "version": "0.0.1",
      <other metadata from pack.yaml>
      "repo_url": "https://github.com/StackStorm-Exchange/stackstorm-aws/"
    },
    "sensu": {
      "name": "sensu",
      "version": "0.3.7",
      <other metadata from pack.yaml>
      "repo_url": "https://github.com/StackStorm-Exchange/stackstorm-sensu/"
    }
  }
}

Rebuilding the index

Rebuilding of the StackStorm Exchange index is performed on every pack.yaml change in the master branch of a tracked StackStorm Exchange pack. The rebuild is automatic and rarely takes more than a couple minutes. If your PR has been merged for some time, and the index has not been updated, please raise an issue.

Our CI repository contains the necessary scripts, and you can take a peek to see how the rebuild works. The repository is public, so the whole process is fully transparent!

Building your own index (advanced)

The index_urls parameter inside st2.conf supports a comma-separated list of index files. Building your own index might be useful if you have a bunch of internal packs: you would be able to keep track of them in a centralized way and make them easily discoverable in your StackStorm instances.

Additionally, if your StackStorm deployment is subject to a security policy or heavily firewalled, you can clone the necessary packs to an internal server and host your own index with modified repo_urls.