Chromite Development: Starter Guide

This doc tries to give an overview and head start to anyone just starting out on Chromite development.

Background

Before you get started on Chromite, we recommend that you go through ChromeOS developer guides at external (first) and then goto/chromeos-building for internal. The Gerrit starter guide may also be helpful. You should flash a built image on a test device (Ask around for one!).

Chromite was intended to be the unified codebase for anything related to building ChromeOS/ChromiumOS. Currently, it is the codebase responsible for several things including: building the OS from the requisite packages for the necessary board (parallel_emerge), driving the infrastructure build workflow (CBuildBot), hosting a Google App Engine App, and providing utility functions for various scripts scattered around ChromeOS repositories. It is written for the most part in Python with some Bash sprinkled in.

Directory Overview

You can use Code Search to lookup things in Chromite or Chromium OS in general.

Non-public code has a separate internal Code Search site. It's organized into different “repositories”, and we have two: “Chrome OS - Internal” (only internal repositories) & “Chrome OS - Public” (only public repositories). You can add a search query for a single combined view (public & private) in the Saved Queries settings page. Use the query package:^chromeos_(internal|public)$. NB: The “Chrome OS - Public” repository is exactly the same as the public source.chromium.org site.

chromite/api

The Chromite API for the CI system. The API exposes a subset of the chromite functionality that needs to be strictly maintained as much as possible.

chromite/cbuildbot

CBuildBot is the collection of entire code that runs on both the parent and the child build machines. It kicks off the individual stages in a particular build. It is a configurable bot that builds ChromeOS.

This project is heavily deprecated as everything has moved to LUCI recipes and the BuildAPI interface. Do not use this project for anything new.

chromite/cbuildbot/builders

This folder contains configurations of the different builders in use. Each has its own set of stages to run usually called under RunStages function. Most builders used regularly are derived from SimpleBuilder class.

chromite/cbuildbot/stages

Each file here has implementations of stages in the build process grouped by similarity. Each stage usually has PerformStage as its primary function.

chromite/docs

Additional documentation.

chromite/lib

Code here is expected to be imported whenever necessary throughout Chromite.

A notable exception: see chromite/utils.

chromite/scripts

Unlike lib, code in scripts will not and should not be imported anywhere. Instead they are executed as required in the build process. Each executable is linked to either wrapper3.py or vpython_wrapper.py. Some of these links are in chromite/bin. When we want to make the tool available to developers (e.g. in $PATH), we put the symlink under bin/. If it's more “internal” usage, then we use scripts/.

The wrapper figures out the directory of the executable script and the $PYTHONPATH. Finally, it invokes the correct Python installation by moving up the directory structure to find which git repo is making the call.

Do not use virtualenv_wrapper.py in new code.

chromite/shell

This directory is a staging area for migrating shell scripts to Python.

chromite/service

These files act as the centralized business logic for processes, utilizing lib for the implementation details. Any process that's implemented in chromite should generally have an entry point somewhere in a service such that it can be called from a script, the API, or anywhere else in lib where the process may be useful.

chromite/third_party

This folder contains all the third_party python libraries required by Chromite. You need a very strong reason to add any library to the current list. Please confirm with the owners beforehand.

chromite/utils

This folder contains smaller, generic utility functionality that is not tied to any specific entities in the codebase that would make them more at home in a lib module.

Code must not import modules outside of utils/ as this directory is intended to be standalone & isolated. This restriction does not apply to unittest modules. Those may freely use Chromite APIs (e.g. chromite.lib.*).

chromite/infra

This folder contains the chromite-specific infra repos.

chromite/systemd

Systemd unit files for services provided by chromite.

chromite/test

This folder contains test-only utilities and helper functions used to make writing tests in other modules easier.

chromite/*

There are smaller folders with miscellaneous functions like config, licencing, cidb, etc.

Testing your Chromite changes

Before any testing, you should check your code for lint errors with:

$ cros lint <filename>

Unit Tests

Chromite now uses pytest for running and writing unit tests. All new code & tests should be written with the expectation to be run under pytest.

Pytest is responsible for running unit tests under Python 3, with the legacy unit test runner scripts/run_tests responsible for running unit tests under Python 2.

Running Chromite's unit tests

Chromite provides a single run_tests wrapper in the top dir that runs all the unittests for you. It's the same as scripts/run_tests, but in an easier-to-find location.

Every Python file in Chromite is accompanied by a corresponding *_unittest.py file. Running a particular file's unit tests is best done via

$ ./run_tests example_file_unittest.py

This script initializes a Python 3 virtualenv with necessary test dependencies and runs pytest inside that virtualenv over all tests in Chromite, with the configuration specified in pytest.ini. The default configuration runs tests in parallel and skips some tests known to be flaky or take a very long time.

Tests will not run in a standalone git checkout of chromite. Use the repo-based flow described above to obtain a functional-testing environment.

Network Tests

By default, any test that reaches out to the network (those wrapped in a @cros_test_lib.pytestmark_network_test decorator) will not be run. To include these tests, add the --network option:

$ ./run_tests --network -- ...

Writing unit tests

Chromite‘s unit tests make use of pytest fixtures. Fixtures that are defined in a conftest.py file are visible to tests in the same directory and all child directories. If it’s unclear where a test function is getting an argument from, try searching for a fixture with that argument's name in a conftest.py file.

Be sure to consult pytest's excellent documentation for guidance on how to take advantage of the features pytest offers when writing unit tests.

Unit tests must clean up after themselves and in particular must not leak child processes after running. There is no guaranteed order in which tests are run or that tests are even run in the same process.

Debugging unit tests

Pass flag --pdb to pytest in order to start an interactive Python debugger on errors or KeyboardInterrupt (e.g. Ctrl+C):

$ ./run_tests -- --pdb

The easiest way to set breakpoints is via the breakpoint() built-in function.

If you wish to attach an external debugger, invoke ./run_tests with the --wait-for-debugger flag. It is recommended to first set any desired breakpoints with the breakpoint() built-in function, and to narrow down the test runner to a specific unit test, e.g.

$ ./run_tests --wait-for-debugger lib/portage_util_unittest.py

You may attach your external debugger as soon as run_tests prints a line that looks like this:

16:51:38: NOTICE: Waiting for a debugger to connect to port 5678...

As an example, you may attach the VSCode built-in debugger, which requires the Python extension. Bring up the “Run and Debug” view, then attach the debugger using the Python: Attach launch configuration. See screencast (Googlers only).

Commit Queue

Once you mark your CL as Commit-Queue +1 (dry run) or +2 (full run) on the Chromium Gerrit, the CQ will pick up your change and run a comprehensive set of tests. Once a CL is verified by CQ, it is merged into the codebase. A dry run runs the same tests as a full run, but doesn't submit the CL when complete.

How does ChromeOS build work?

Refer to these talk slides on ChromeOS Build Overview.