Recipes

Recipes are a domain-specific language (embedded in python) for specifying sequences of subprocess calls in a cross-platform and testable way.

Background

Chromium uses BuildBot for its builds. It requires master restarts to change bot configs, which slows bot changes down.

With Recipes, most build-related things happen in scripts that run on the slave, which means that the master does not need to be restarted in order to change something about a build configuration.

Recipes also provide a way to unit test build scripts, by mocking commands and recording “expectations” of what will happen when the script runs under various conditions. This makes it easy to verify that the scope of a change is limited.

Intro

This README will seek to teach the ways of Recipes, so that you may do one or more of the following:

  • Read them
  • Make new recipes
  • Fix bugs in recipes
  • Create libraries (api modules) for others to use in their recipes.

The document will build knowledge up in small steps using examples, and so it's probably best to read the whole doc through from top to bottom once before using it as a reference.

Small Beginnings

Recipes are a means to cause a series of commands to run on a machine.

All recipes take the form of a python file whose body looks like this:

# scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py
DEPS = ['recipe_engine/step']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.step('Print Hello World', ['echo', 'hello', 'world'])

def GenTests(api):
  return ()

The RunSteps function is expected to take at least a single argument api (we'll get to that in more detail later), and run a series of steps by calling api functions. All of these functions will eventually make calls to api.step(), which is the only way to actually get anything done on the machine. Using python libraries with OS side-effects is prohibited to enable testing.

The GenTests function currently does nothing, but a recipe is invalid and cannot be run unless it defines a GenTests function.

For these examples we will work out of the tools/build repository.

Put this in a file under scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py. You can then run this recipe by calling

$ scripts/slave/recipes.py run hello
Note: every recipe execution (e.g. build on buildbot) emits a step log called run_recipe on the setup_build step which provides a precise invocation for recipes.py correlating exactly with the current recipe invocation. This is useful to locally repro a failing build without having to guess at the parameters to recipes.py.

We should probably test as we go...

All recipes MUST have corresponding tests, which achieve 100% code coverage.

You can execute the tests for the recipes by running

$ scripts/slave/recipes.py test run

As part of running the tests the coverage of the recipes is checked, so you should expect output similar to the following snippet to appear as part of the output of the command.

Name                             Stmts   Miss  Cover   Missing
--------------------------------------------------------------
scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py       5      1    80%   5
--------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL                            21132      1    99%

488 files skipped due to complete coverage.

FATAL: Insufficient coverage (99%)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1940 tests in 61.135s

FAILED

The Stmts column indicates the number of statements that are in the recipe file. The Miss column indicates the number of statements that do not have coverage. The Missing column details the spans of code that are not covered, so currently only the statement on line 4 is not covered. The other statements are the DEPS and function definitions and the body of the GenTests.

So let's add a test to get the necessary coverage.

# scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py
DEPS = ['recipe_engine/step']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.step('Print Hello World', ['echo', 'hello', 'world'])

def GenTests(api):
  yield api.test('basic')

The GenTests method takes a single parameter api that has methods for defining test specifications. Calling GenTests must result in an iterable of test specifications. api.test('basic') creates a test specification that causes a test case to be generated named ‘basic’ that has no input parameters. As your recipe becomes more complex, you'll need to add more tests to make sure that you maintain 100% code coverage.

If you were to run the tests at this point, you would now get a failure including the following output.

hello.basic failed:
--- expected
+++ actual
@@ -1 +1,15 @@
-None
+[
+  {
+    "cmd": [
+      "echo",
+      "hello",
+      "world"
+    ],
+    "name": "Print Hello World"
+  },
+  {
+    "name": "$result",
+    "recipe_result": null,
+    "status_code": 0
+  }
+]

Every test case has associated json files detailing the steps executed by the recipe and the results of those actions. If the sequence of steps executed by the recipe don't match the expected values in the json file then the test will fail.

You can train the test by running

$ scripts/slave/recipes.py test train --filter hello

The --filter flag can be used when running or training the tests to limit the tests that are executed. For details on the format, pass the -h flag to either test run or test train. Coverage will not be checked when using the --filter flag.

Training the test will generate or update the json expectation files. There should now be a file scripts/slave/recipes/hello.expected.basic.json in your working copy with content matching the steps executed by the recipe.

[
  {
    "cmd": [
      "echo",
      "hello",
      "world"
    ],
    "name": "Print Hello World"
  },
  {
    "name": "$result",
    "recipe_result": null,
    "status_code": 0
  }
]

When making actual changes, these json files should be included as part of your commit and reviewed for correctness.

Running the tests now would result in a passing run, printing OK.

But we can do better

In reality, the json expectation files are something of a maintenance burden and they don‘t do an effective job of making it clear what is being tested. You still may need to know how to train expectations if you’re making modifications to existing recipes and modules that already use expectation files, but new tests should instead use the post-process api which enables making assertions on the steps that were run.

This functionality is exposed to GenTests by calling api.post_process. This method requires a single parameter that is a function that will perform the checks. The provided function must take two parameters: check and step_odict.

  • check is the function that performs the low-level check operation; it evalutes a boolean expression and if it's false it records it as a failure. When it records a failure, it also records the backtrace and the values of variables used in the expression to provide helpful context when the failures are displayed.
  • step_odict is an OrderedDict mapping step name to the step's dictionary. The dictionary for a step contains the same information that appears for the step in the json expectation files.

api.post_process accepts arbitrary additional positional and keyword arguments and these will be forwarded on to the assertion function.

The function can return a filtered subset of step_odict or it can return None to indicate that there are no changes to step_odict. Multiple calls to api.post_process can be made and each of the provided functions will be called in order with the step_odict that results from prior assertion functions.

Let's re-write our test to use the post-process api:

# scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = ['recipe_engine/step']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.step('Print Hello World', ['echo', 'hello', 'world'])

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('basic')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Print Hello World',
                         ['echo', 'hello', 'world'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

Yes, elements of a test specification are combined with + and it's weird.

The call that includes StepCommandRE will check that the step named ‘Print Hello World’ has as its list of arguments [‘echo’, ‘hello’, ‘world’] (each element can actually be a regular expression that must match the corresponding argument). The call with just DropExpectation doesn't check anything, it just inhibits the test from outputting a json expectation file.

If you were to change the command list passed when using StepCommandRE so that it no longer matched, you would get output similar to the following:

hello.basic failed:
    CHECK(FAIL):
      .../infra/recipes-py/recipe_engine/post_process.py:224 - StepCommandRE()
        `check(_fullmatch(expected, actual))`
          expected: 'world2'
          actual: 'world'
    added .../build/scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py:14
      StepCommandRE('Print Hello World', ['echo', 'hello', 'world2'])

This output provides the following information: a backtrace rooted from the entry-point into the assertion function to the failed check call, the value of variables in the expression provided to check (evaluate the expression in the check call rather than before so that you get more helpful output) and the location where the assertion was added.

See the documentation of post_process in recipe_test_api.py for more details about the post-processing api and see post_process.py for information on the available assertion functions.

Tests should use the post-process api to make assertions about the steps under test. Just as when writing tests under any other frameworks, be careful not to make your assertions too strict or you run the risk of needing to update tests due to unrelated changes. Tests should also make sure to pass DropExpectation to the final call to api.post_process to avoid creating json expectation files. It's important for that to be the last call to api.post_process because the functions passed to any later calls will receive an empty step dict otherwise.

Let's do something useful

Properties are the primary input for your recipes

In order to do something useful, we need to pull in parameters from the outside world. There's one primary source of input for recipes, which is properties.

Properties are a relic from the days of BuildBot, though they have been dressed up a bit to be more like we‘ll want them in the future. If you’re familiar with BuildBot, you'll probably know them as factory_properties and build_properties. The new properties object is a merging of these two, and is provided by the properties api module.

This is now abstracted into the PROPERTIES top level declaration in your recipe. You declare a dictionary of properties that your recipe accepts. The recipe engine will extract the properties your recipe cares about from all the properties it knows about, and pass them as arguments to your RunSteps function.

Let's see an example!

# scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation
from recipe_engine.recipe_api import Property

DEPS = [
    'recipe_engine/properties',
    'recipe_engine/step',
]

PROPERTIES = {
    'target_of_admiration': Property(
        kind=str, help="Who you love and adore.", default="Chrome Infra"),
}

def RunSteps(api, target_of_admiration):
  verb = 'Hello %s'
  if target_of_admiration == 'DarthVader':
    verb = 'Die in a fire %s!'
  api.step('Greet Admired Individual', ['echo', verb % target_of_admiration])

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('basic')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='Bob')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Hello Bob'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('vader')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='DarthVader')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Die in a fire DarthVader!'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('infra rocks')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Hello Chrome Infra'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

The property list is a whitelist, so if the properties provided as inputs to the current recipe run were

{
  'target_of_admiration': 'Darth Vader',
  'some_other_chill_thing': 'so_chill',
}

then the recipe wouldn't know about the other some_other_chill_thing property at all.

Note that properties without a default are required. If you don't want a property to be required, just add default=None to the definition.

Each parameter to RunSteps besides the api parameter requires a matching entry in the PROPERTIES dict.

To specify property values in a local run:

script/slaves/recipes.py run <recipe-name> opt=bob other=sally

Or, more explicitly::

script/slaves/recipes.py --properties-file <path/to/json>

Where <path/to/json> is a file containing a valid json object (i.e. key:value pairs).

Note that we need to put a dependency on the ‘recipe_engine/properties’ module in the DEPS because we use it to generate our tests, even though we don't actually call the module in our code. See this crbug.com/532275 for more info.

Modules

There are all sorts of helper modules. They are found in the recipe_modules directory alongside the recipes directory where the recipes go.

There are a whole bunch of modules which provide really helpful tools. You should go take a look at them. scripts/slave/recipes.py is a pretty helpful tool. If you want to know more about properties, step and path, I would suggest starting with scripts/slave/recipes.py doc, and then delving into the helpful docstrings in those helpful modules.

Notice the DEPS line in the recipe. Any modules named by string in DEPS are ‘injected’ into the api parameter that your recipe gets. If you leave them out of DEPS, you'll get an AttributeError when you try to access them. The modules are located primarily in recipe_modules/, and their name is their folder name.

The format of the strings in the DEPS entry depends on whether the depended-on module is part of the current repo or a dependency repo (e.g. depot_tools or recipe_engine for the build repo). Modules from dependency repos are specified with the form <repo-name>/<module-name> as has been done for the step and properties modules. Modules from the current repo are specified with just the module name.

Making Modules

Modules are for grouping functionality together and exposing it across recipes.

So now you feel like you're pretty good at recipes, but you want to share your echo functionality across a couple recipes which all start the same way. To do this, you need to add a module directory.

scripts/slave/recipe_modules/
  ...
  goma/
  halt/
  hello/
    __init__.py  # (Required) Contains optional `DEPS = list([other modules])`
    api.py       # (Required) Contains single required RecipeApi-derived class
    config.py    # (Optional) Contains configuration for your api
    *_config.py  # (Optional) These contain extensions to the configurations of
                 #   your dependency APIs
    examples/    # (Recommended) Contains example recipes that show how to
                 #   actually use the module
    tests/       # (Optional) Contains test recipes that can be used to test
                 #   individual behaviors of the module
  ...

First add an __init__.py with DEPS:

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/__init__.py
from recipe_engine.recipe_api import Property

DEPS = [
    'recipe_engine/path',
    'recipe_engine/properties',
    'recipe_engine/step',
]

PROPERTIES = {
    'target_of_admiration': Property(default=None),
}

And your api.py should look something like:

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/api.py
from recipe_engine import recipe_api

class HelloApi(recipe_api.RecipeApi):
  def __init__(self, target_of_admiration, *args, **kwargs):
    super(HelloApi, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
    self._target = target_of_admiration

  def greet(self, default_verb=None):
    verb = default_verb or 'Hello %s'
    if self._target == 'DarthVader':
      verb = 'Die in a fire %s!'
    self.m.step('Greet Admired Individual',
                ['echo', verb % self._target])

Note that all the DEPS get injected into self.m. This logic is handled outside of the object (i.e. not in __init__).

Because dependencies are injected after module initialization, you do not have access to injected modules in your APIs __init__ method!

And now, our refactored recipe:

# scripts/slave/recipes/hello.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = [
    'hello',
    'recipe_engine/properties',
]

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.greet()

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('basic')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='Bob')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Hello Bob'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('vader')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='DarthVader')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Die in a fire DarthVader!'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

If you were to run or train the tests without the --filter flag at this point, you would experience a failure due to missing coverage of the hello module. Before running any of the tests the following will appear in the output:

ERROR: The following modules lack test coverage: hello

And the coverage report will be as follows:

Name                                        Stmts   Miss  Cover   Missing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/api.py      10      6    40%   6-7, 10-13
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL                                       21147      6    99%

To get coverage for a module you need to put recipes with tests in the examples or tests subdirectory of the module. So let's move our hello recipe into the examples subdirectory of our module.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/examples/simple.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = [
    'hello',
    'recipe_engine/properties',
]

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.greet()

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('basic')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='Bob')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Hello Bob'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('vader')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='DarthVader')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         ['echo', 'Die in a fire DarthVader!'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

Training the tests again now results in 100% coverage.

So how do I really write those tests?

The basic form of tests is:

def GenTests(api):
  yield api.test('testname') + # other stuff

Some modules define interfaces for specifying necessary step data; these are injected into api from DEPS similarly to how it works for RunSteps. There are a few other methods available to GenTests's api. Common ones include:

  • api.properties(buildername='foo_builder') sets properties as we have seen.
  • api.platform('linux', 32) sets the mock platform to 32-bit linux.
  • api.step_data('Hello World', retcode=1) mocks the 'Hello World' step to have failed with exit code 1.

By default all simulated steps succeed, the platform is 64-bit linux, and there are no properties. The api.properties.generic() method populates some common properties for Chromium recipes.

The api passed to GenTests is confusingly NOT the same as the recipe api. It's actually an instance of recipe_test_api.py:RecipeTestApi(). This is admittedly pretty weak, and it would be great to have the test api automatically created via modules. On the flip side, the test api is much less necessary than the recipe api, so this transformation has not been designed yet.

What is that config business?

Configs are a way for a module to expose it's “global” state in a reusable way.

A common problem in Building Things is that you end up with an inordinately large matrix of configurations. Let's take chromium, for example. Here is a sample list of axes of configuration which chromium needs to build and test:

  • BUILD_CONFIG
  • HOST_PLATFORM
  • HOST_ARCH
  • HOST_BITS
  • TARGET_PLATFORM
  • TARGET_ARCH
  • TARGET_BITS
  • builder type (ninja? msvs? xcodebuild?)
  • compiler
  • ...

Obviously there are a lot of combinations of those things, but only a relatively small number of valid combinations of those things. How can we represent all the valid states while still retaining our sanity?

We begin by specifying a schema that configurations of the hello module will follow, and the config context based on it that we will add configuration items to.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/config.py
from recipe_engine.config import config_item_context, ConfigGroup
from recipe_engine.config import Single, Static, BadConf

def BaseConfig(TARGET='Bob'):
  # This is a schema for the 'config blobs' that the hello module deals with.
  return ConfigGroup(
    verb = Single(str),
    # A config blob is not complete() until all required entries have a value.
    tool = Single(str, required=True),
    # Generally, your schema should take a series of CAPITAL args which will be
    # set as StaticConfig data in the config blob.
    TARGET = Static(str(TARGET)),
  )

config_ctx = config_item_context(BaseConfig)

The BaseConfig schema is expected to return a ConfigGroup instance of some sort. All the configs that you get out of this file will be a modified version of something returned by the schema method. The arguments should have sane defaults, and should be named in ALL_CAPS (this is to avoid argument name conflicts as we'll see later).

config_ctx is the ‘context’ for all the config items in this file, and will magically become the CONFIG_CTX for the entire module. Other modules may extend this context, which we will get to later.

Finally let's define some config items themselves. A config item is a function decorated with the config_ctx, and takes a config blob as ‘c’. The config item updates the config blob, perhaps conditionally. There are many features to slave/recipe_config.py. I would recommend reading the docstrings there for all the details.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/config.py

...

# Each of these functions is a 'config item' in the context of config_ctx.

# is_root means that every config item will apply this item first.
@config_ctx(is_root=True)
def BASE(c):
  if c.TARGET == 'DarthVader':
    c.verb = 'Die in a fire %s!'
  else:
    c.verb = 'Hello %s'

@config_ctx(group='tool')  # items with the same group are mutually exclusive.
def super_tool(c):
  if c.TARGET != 'Charlie':
    raise BadConf('Can only use super tool for Charlie!')
  c.tool = 'unicorn.py'

@config_ctx(group='tool')
def default_tool(c):
  c.tool = 'echo'

Now that we have our config, let's use it.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/api.py
from recipe_engine import recipe_api

class HelloApi(recipe_api.RecipeApi):
  def __init__(self, target_of_admiration, *args, **kwargs):
    super(HelloApi, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
    self._target = target_of_admiration

  def get_config_defaults(self):
    defaults = {}
    if self._target is not None:
      defaults['TARGET'] = self._target
    return defaults

  def greet(self, default_verb=None):
    self.m.step('Greet Admired Individual', [
        self.m.path['start_dir'].join(self.c.tool),
        self.c.verb % self.c.TARGET])

Note that recipe_api.RecipeApi contains all the plumbing for dealing with configs. If your module has a config, you can access its current value via self.c. The users of your module (read: recipes) will need to set this value in one way or another. Also note that c is a ‘public’ variable, which means that recipes have direct access to the configuration state by api.<modname>.c.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/examples/simple.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = [
    'hello',
    'recipe_engine/properties',
]

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.set_config('default_tool')
  api.hello.greet()

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('bob')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         [r'.*\becho', 'Hello Bob'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('anya')
      + api.properties(target_of_admiration='anya')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         [r'.*\becho', 'Hello anya'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

Note the call to set_config. This method takes the configuration name specifed, finds it in the given module ('hello' in this case), and sets api.hello.c equal to the result of invoking the named config item ('default_tool') with the default configuration (the result of calling get_config_defaults), merged over the static defaults specified by the schema.

Note that the first pattern provided when using StepCommandRE is now r'.*\becho'. Because we are using the path module to locate the tool now, the command line no longer has just echo. The patterns must match the entire argument (this simplifies the case of matching against most constant strings), so the r'.*\b' matches any number of leading characters and then a word boundary so that we match a tool named ‘echo’ in some location.

100% coverage is required for config.py also, so lets add some additional examples that call set_config differently to get different results:

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/examples/rainbow.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = ['hello']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.set_config('super_tool', TARGET='Charlie')
  api.hello.greet()  # Greets 'Charlie' with unicorn.py.

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('charlie')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         [r'.*\bunicorn.py', 'Hello Charlie'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )
# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/examples/evil.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import StepCommandRE, DropExpectation

DEPS = ['hello']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.set_config('default_tool', TARGET='DarthVader')
  api.hello.greet()  # Causes 'DarthVader' to despair with echo

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('darth')
      + api.post_process(StepCommandRE, 'Greet Admired Individual',
                         [r'.*\becho', 'Die in a fire DarthVader!'])
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

set_config() also has one additional bit of magic. If a module (say, chromium), depends on some other modules (say, gclient), if you do api.chromium.set_config('blink'), it will apply the 'blink' config item from the chromium module, but it will also attempt to apply the 'blink' config for all the dependencies, too. This way, you can have the chromium module extend the gclient config context with a ‘blink’ config item, and then set_configs will stack across all the relevent contexts. (This has since been recognized as a design mistake)

recipe_api.RecipeApi also provides make_config and apply_config, which allow recipes more-direct access to the config items. However, set_config() is the most-preferred way to apply configurations.

We still don‘t have coverage for the line in config.py that raises a BadConf. This isn’t an example of how the hello module should be used, so lets add a recipe under the tests subdirectory to get the last bit of coverage.

# scripts/slave/recipe_modules/hello/tests/badconf.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import DropExpectation

DEPS = ['hello']

def RunSteps(api):
  api.hello.set_config('super_tool', TARGET='Not Charlie')

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('badconf')
      + api.expect_exception('BadConf')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

What about getting data back from a step?

Consider this recipe:

# scripts/slave/recipes/shake.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import DropExpectation, MustRun

DEPS = [
    'recipe_engine/path',
    'recipe_engine/step',
]

def RunSteps(api):
  step_result = api.step(
      'Determine blue moon',
      [api.path['start_dir'].join('is_blue_moon.sh')],
      ok_ret='any')

  if step_result.retcode == 0:
    api.step('HARLEM SHAKE!',
             [api.path['start_dir'].join('do_the_harlem_shake.sh')])
  else:
    api.step('Boring',
             [api.path['start_dir'].join('its_a_small_world.sh')])

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('harlem')
      + api.step_data('Determine blue moon', retcode=0)
      + api.post_process(MustRun, 'HARLEM SHAKE!')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('boring')
      + api.step_data('Determine blue moon', retcode=1)
      + api.post_process(MustRun, 'Boring')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

The ok_ret parameter to api.step() is necessary if you wish to react to a step‘s retcode. By default, any retcode except 0 will result in an exception. Pass one of the strings ‘any’ or ‘all’ to continue execution regardless of the retcode. Alternatively you can pass a tuple or set of ints to continue execution if the step’s retcode is one of the provided values.

See how we use step_result to get the result of the last step? The item we get back is a recipe_engine.main.StepData instance (really, just a basic object with member data). The members of this object which are guaranteed to exist are:

  • retcode: Pretty much what you think
  • step: The actual step json which was sent to annotator.py. Not usually useful for recipes, but it is used internally for the recipe tests framework.
  • presentation: An object representing how the step will show up on the build page, including its exit status, links, and extra log text. This is a recipe_engine.main.StepPresentation object. See also How to change step presentation.

This is pretty neat... However, it turns out that returncodes suck bigtime for communicating actual information. api.json.output() to the rescue!

# scripts/slave/recipes/war.py
from recipe_engine.post_process import DropExpectation, MustRun

DEPS = [
    'recipe_engine/json',
    'recipe_engine/path',
    'recipe_engine/step',
]

def RunSteps(api):
  step_result = api.step(
      'run tests',
      [api.path['start_dir'].join('do_test_things.sh'), api.json.output()])
  num_passed = step_result.json.output['num_passed']
  if num_passed > 500:
    api.step('victory', [api.path['start_dir'].join('do_a_dance.sh')])
  elif num_passed > 200:
    api.step('not defeated', [api.path['start_dir'].join('woohoo.sh')])
  else:
    api.step('deads!', [api.path['start_dir'].join('you_r_deads.sh')])

def GenTests(api):
  yield (
      api.test('winning')
      + api.step_data('run tests', api.json.output({'num_passed': 791}))
      + api.post_process(MustRun, 'victory')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('not_dead_yet')
      + api.step_data('run tests', api.json.output({'num_passed': 302}))
      + api.post_process(MustRun, 'not defeated')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

  yield (
      api.test('noooooo')
      + api.step_data('run tests', api.json.output({'num_passed': 10}))
      + api.post_process(MustRun, 'deads!')
      + api.post_process(DropExpectation)
  )

How does THAT work!?

api.json.output() returns a recipe_api.Placeholder which is meant to be added into a step command list. When the step runs, the placeholder gets rendered into some strings (in this case, like ‘/tmp/some392ra8’). When the step finishes, the Placeholder adds data to the StepData object for the step which just ran, namespaced by the module name (in this case, the ‘json’ module decided to add an ‘output’ attribute to the step_history item). I'd encourage you to take a peek at the implementation of the json module to see how this is implemented.

Example: write to standard input of a step

api.step(..., stdin=api.raw_io.input('test input'))

Also see raw_io's example.

Example: read standard output of a step as json

step_result = api.step(..., stdout=api.json.output())
data = step_result.stdout
# data is a parsed JSON value, such as dict

Also see json's example.

Example: write to standard input of a step as json

data = {'value': 1}
api.step(..., stdin=api.json.input(data))

Also see json's example.

Example: simulated step output

This example specifies the standard output that should be returned when a step is executed in simulation mode. This is typically used for specifying default test data in the recipe or recipe module and removes the need to specify too much test data for each test in GenTests:

api.step(..., step_test_data=api.raw_io.output('test data'))

Example: simulated step output for a test case

yield (
    api.test('my_test') +
    api.step_data(
        'step_name',
        output=api.raw_io.output('test data')))

How to change step presentation?

step_result.presentation allows modifying the appearance of a step:

Logging

step_result.presentation.logs['mylog'] = ['line1', 'line2']

Creates an extra log “mylog” under the step.

Setting properties

api.properties are immutable, but you can change and add new properties at the buildbot level.

step_result.presentation.properties['newprop'] = 1

Example: step text

This modifies the text displayed next to a step name:

step_result = api.step(...)
step_result.presentation.step_text = 'Dynamic step result text'
  • presentaton.logs allows creating extra logs of a step run. Example:
    step_result.presentation.logs['mylog'] = ['line1', 'line2']
    
  • presentation.properties allows changing and adding new properties at the buildbot level. Example:
    step_result.presentation.properties['newprop'] = 1
    

How do I know what modules to use?

Use scripts/slave/recipes.py doc. It's super effective!

How do I run those tests you were talking about?

Each repo has a recipes.py entry point under recipes_path from recipes.cfg .

Execute the following commands: ./recipes.py test run ./recipes.py test train

Specifically, for tools/build repo, the commands to execute are: scripts/slave/recipes.py test run scripts/slave/recipes.py test train

Where's the docs on *.py?

Check the docstrings in *.py. <trollface text="Problem?"/>

In addition, most recipe modules have example recipes in the examples subfolder which exercises most of the code in the module for example purposes.

What are Placeholders and how do they work?

Placeholders are wrappers around inputs and outputs from recipe steps. They provide a mocking mechanism for tests, and data-processing capabilities.

Example

step_result = api.python('run a cool script', 'really_cool_script.py',
                         ['--json-output-file', api.json.output()],
                         ok_ret=(0,1))
print step_result.json.output

There‘s quite a bit of magic happening underlying these two lines of code. Let’s dive in.

api.json.output() returns an instance of JsonOutputPlaceholder. JsonOutputPlaceholder is a subclass of OutputPlaceholder, and has two relevant public methods: render() and result(). The recipe engine will replace each instance of OutputPlaceholder in the arguments list with OutputPlaceholder.render(). JsonOutputPlaceholder creates a file and returns its name in render(). For this example, let's assume that render() returns /tmp/output.json.

So in this case, the recipe engine will actually execute:

python really_cool_script.py --json-output-file /tmp/output.json

When the program returns, the recipe engine will call JsonOutputPlaceholder.result() and seed the result into step_result.json.output. Here, json refers to the name of the recipe module, and output was the name of the function that returned the JsonOutputPlaceholder.

The implementation of JsonOutputPlaceholder.result() will parse the JSON from /tmp/output.json.

Tests and Mocks

yield api.test('test really_cool_script.py') +
api.step_data('run a cool script', api.json.output({'json': 'object'}))

This test case will stub out the actual invocation of really_cool_script.py and directly populate the test dictionary into api.step.active_result.json.output.

Behind the scenes, this works because the json module has defined a test_api.py class with a method output. The invocation of api.json.output is actually calling a different function than the prior call to api.json.output.