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Packages

info

Packages are a part of the Kurtosis package system. To read about the package system in detail, see here.

A Kurtosis package is a:

  • A directory
  • Plus all its contents
  • That contains a kurtosis.yml file with the package's name, which will be the locator root for the package

Kurtosis packages are the system by which Starlark scripts can include external resources.

Note that, when developing locally, the GitHub repo referred to in the package name does not need to exist.

Kurtosis packages are shared simply by pushing to GitHub (e.g. these are the packages we administer).

For example, suppose there is a repo called package-repo by the author package-author whose internal directory structure looks like so:

/
    package-repo/
        my-package/
            kurtosis.yml
            main.star
            helpers/
                helpers.star

whose kurtosis.yml file looks like so:

name: github.com/package-author/package-repo/my-package

The package would be called github.com/package-author/package-repo/my-package. It should get pushed to the package-repo repo owned by the package-author user on GitHub.

Packages are referenced indirectly, as the locators used to specify external resources in a Starlark script will contain the package name where the resource lives.

For example:

helpers = import_module("github.com/package-author/package-repo/my-package/helpers/helpers.star")

would be used to import the helpers.star file into a Starlark script.

The Kurtosis engine will automatically download dependency packages from GitHub when running a Starlark script.

Runnable Packages​

A Kurtosis package that has a main.star file next to its kurtosis.yml file is called a "runnable package". The main.star file of a runnable package must have a run(plan) method like so:

def run(plan):
    plan.print("Hello, world.")
info

More on the plan parameter here.

Runnable packages can be called through the kurtosis run function of the CLI:

# OPTION 1: Point to a directory with a `kurtosis.yml` and `main.star` on local filesystem
kurtosis run /path/to/runnable/package/root
# OPTION 2: Point to a `kurtosis.yml` on the local filesystem with a `main.star` next to it on local fileesystem
kurtosis run /path/to/runnable/package/root/kurtosis.yml
# OPTION 3: Pass in a remote package name to run from GitHub
kurtosis run github.com/package-author/package-repo/path/to/directory-with-kurtosis.yml
tip

If you want to run a non-main branch, tag or commit use the following syntax kurtosis run github.com/package-author/package-repo@tag-branch-commit

All these will call the run(plan) function of the package's main.star.

Parameterization​

Kurtosis packages can accept parameters, allowing their behaviour to change.

To make your package take in arguments, first add extra parameters to your package's run function:

From this...

def run(plan):

...to this:

# Parameters without a default value are required; parameter with a default value are optional
def run(plan, some_parameter, some_other_parameter = "Default value"):
danger

You may come across an old style of package parameterization where the run function takes a single args variable containing all the package's parameters, like so:

# OLD STYLE - DO NOT USE
def run(plan, args):

This method is now deprecated, and will be removed in the future.

Consumers of your package can then pass in these parameters to configure your package:

kurtosis run github.com/YOUR-USER/YOUR-REPO '{"some_parameter": 5, "some_other_parameter": "New value"}'

For detailed instructions on passing arguments via the CLI, see the "Arguments" section of the kurtosis run documentation.