Can bolt resolve non-Forge modules w/o specifying them directly in the Bolt project?

[gavindidrichsen]

This question was posed by Yuri Bushmelev on Puppet Community Slack. The crux is in this comment below:

I would like Bolt to bring dependent non-Forge modules w/o specifying them directly in the Bolt project.

[jay7x]

Let me clarify what I'm looking for. Imagine we have a bolt project, that depends on some other private modules hosted in git (not on Forge):

I can include them in a bolt-project.yaml file in this way:

modules:
  - git: git@gitlab.example.com:platform/my_module1.git
    ref: master
  - git: git@gitlab.example.com:platform/my_module2.git
    ref: master

Every repo above is a puppet module with their respective metadata.json.

Let's say my_module1 depends on another module.. Let it be my_basemodule hosted in a git@gitlab.example.com:platform/my_basemodule.git repo.

How can I bring that dependency to my main project without specifying it explicitly in the bolt-project.yaml?

Ideally, I'd like to specify the my_basemodule as a dependency in the my_module1's metadata.json file. Then I'd expect that bolt module install --force will bring it to my project.

Is it possible? That is my original question :)

[jay7x]

Speaking about your original post, I was looking for a way to use a local git repo or a local directory while ago also. It would be nice to have such a "shortcut" to speedup (dependent) module development. Though here I was asking different question. Maybe we should split the discussion into two different topics.

[gavindidrichsen]

Hi @jay7x,

...How can I bring that dependency to my main project without specifying it explicitly in the bolt-project.yaml? Ideally, I'd like to specify the my_basemodule as a dependency in the my_module1's metadata.json file. Then I'd expect that bolt module install --force will bring it to my project. Is it possible?

Thanks for clarifying what you're trying to do. We've looked into this and think the .fixtures.yml may be what you need.

For example, see the puppetlabs-sqlserver module which contains a .fixtures.yml:

➜  puppetlabs-sqlserver git:(main) ✗ cat .fixtures.yml 
fixtures:
  repositories:
    facts: 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-facts.git'
    puppet_agent:
      repo: 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-puppet_agent.git'
      ref: 4d148c4
    provision: 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/provision.git'
    stdlib: 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-stdlib.git'
    mount_iso: 'https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-mount_iso.git'
    archive: 'https://github.com/voxpupuli/puppet-archive.git'
  symlinks:
    sqlserver: "#{source_dir}"
➜  puppetlabs-sqlserver git:(main) ✗


# after doing a bundle install, then installing locally
➜  puppetlabs-sqlserver git:(main) ✗ bundle exec rake spec_prep
I, [2024-03-06T09:29:16.411301 #26625]  INFO -- : Creating symlink from spec/fixtures/modules/sqlserver to /Users/gavin.didrichsen/@REFERENCES/github/app/parent/dump/puppetlabs-sqlserver
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/facts'...
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/provision'...
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/stdlib'...
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/archive'...
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/puppet_agent'...
Cloning into 'spec/fixtures/modules/mount_iso'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 119, done.
...

Hope this helps. If it doesn't let us know!

Gavin

[jay7x]

But .fixtures.yml is applied only for unit tests.. My case is different, I would like Bolt to bring dependent non-Forge modules w/o specifying them directly in the Bolt project.

[gavindidrichsen]

Hi @jay7x.

...I would like Bolt to bring dependent non-Forge modules w/o specifying them directly in the Bolt project.

Unfortunately, bolt doesn't currently support this feature.

[gavindidrichsen]

Hi @jay7x . Just wanted to check if you had any more questions here or if you'd be ok if we closed this off. It can always be re-opened at a later stage if desired.

[jay7x]

I'm not happy with the current state, but I'm ok to close the discussion :)

[gavindidrichsen]

Hi @jay7x.

Thanks for the update. I've raised a question/feature-request against bolt. See puppetlabs/bolt#3276.

Please update this if you'd like to add any more clarification.

Gavin.