Suggested Workflow: Templates in Forge Modules

[michaeltlombardi]

I've put up an experimental item template for adding a new Resource API type and provider which depends on the PowerShell Manager from the ruby-pwsh/puppetlabs-pwshlib gem/module.

It will likely soon include an experimental project template for the minimum scaffolding for a Puppet module which has the necessary gems and fixtures.

A workflow that I would like to explore is having the PDK find templates in an expected location of my installed modules (in my experiment, module_name/pdk/templates) without having to specify --templatepath on each use.

So if that experiment was merged, I would like the following workflow to "just work"

puppet module install puppetlabs-pwshlib
pct new rsapi-pwsh-module --name foo
pct new rsapi-pwsh-resource --name foo_bar

Right now, I need to specify --templatepath to the pdk/templates folder inside of wherever puppetlabs-pwshlib was installed.

[michaeltlombardi]

I don't know how frequently this need will come up, but the ruby-pwsh/puppetlabs-pwshlib is a library project meant to make it easier to use PowerShell inside of Puppet resources; so it makes sense to me to be able to publish PDK templates which correspond to that specific functionality.

I can similarly envision a library module for python, docker, or even templates for stdlib - any Puppet module which introduces a library of helpers to be consumed by other modules.

[da-ar]

At the moment user config is restricted to ~/.pdk/pct.yml as documented here. I liked your idea around being able to locate that within a "project" of some kind.

Taking that concept, the current thought is that pct would look in the directory it is being run from, say my_projects/module_name and override "globally" set user config for the specified templates. If we expand that config file to allow setting a templatepath then any time pct new is called it would pick up the path from the project configuration.

I believe that would provide the flexibility without having to think in terms of modules. It could also allow for the shipping of a configuration file with predefined overrides.

[jpogran]

The ~/.pdk/pct.yml config file accepts a templatepath right now. When we add the project level config, it will still work there.

I am not sure about the 'storing the template in a puppet module' type distribution. We are working to make the templates installable from the forge, so that is where I would expect to find your template. However I could see the case of keeping the template inside your module to keep the points of change together.

[michaeltlombardi]

Does the templatepath parameter in the ~/.pdk/pct.yml accept an array of paths? It would be straightforward to add doc notes like

If you'd like to use the templates included in this module, make sure to add the path to the pdk/templates folder in this module to the templatepaths section of your ~/.pdk/pct.yml config file.
You can quickly grab that path by...

I'm not against maintaining the templates separately, it'll just be another (small) repo to care and feed.