AL-Go/Workshop/Dependencies1.md

Dependencies #1 - Dependencies to a project in the same repository

Dependencies is a BIG topic, which is why it is handled in multiple sections in this workshop.

In general, dependencies between apps in the same project are handled 100% automatically. AL-Go for GitHub will determine the order in which apps within the same project need to be built, and will use the apps built to satisfy dependencies from other apps.

This means that in a single project repository, you only need to add your dependencies in app.json and you are good to go.

This topic describes two ways to handle dependencies to apps within another project in the same repository. In the MySolution example from the multi-project sample here, we could have a dependency from the DK and US apps to the W1 app.

useProjectDependencies

Let's go ahead and add the dependencies and see what happens. Grab the id, name, publisher and version from the mysolution.w1/app.json and use them to add a dependency to that app into mysolution.dk/app.json and mysolution.us/app.json.

Stage your changes, Commit them and Sync your changes.

Another CI/CD workflow will be kicked off. Two of the jobs (the DK and the US apps) should fail fairly quickly as AL-Go cannot find the W1 app dependency anywhere.

It cannot find the mysolution.w1 app on which the two other apps depend, but we kind of knew that.

The recommended solution to this problem is to set a repository setting called useProjectDependencies to true and then run Update AL-Go System Files.

Repository settings are in .github/AL-Go-Settings.json

Changing the settings file will kick off another build, which also will fail.

Now, select Actions, select Update AL-Go System Files and click Run workflow. No need to change any parameters, just run the workflow.

Looking at the Pull request created by the Update AL-Go System Files workflow, we can see that all build workflows have been changed and now ínclude a workflowDepth: 2 (instead of 1).

Merge the Pull request, confirm the merge and delete the temporary branch. Open the latest merge commit and see that the structure of the CI/CD workflow has changed. Now it builds the W1 project first and dependencies from the apps DK or US that are found in W1 will be automatically located.

!NOTE

It isn't necessary to update AL-Go System files every time you change or add dependencies, but you will need to run the upgrade code every time you change the workflow dependency depth.

Looking at the artifacts produced by the build, we can see

!NOTE

The thisbuild artifacts are shortlived - they are only there so that depending projects can find build artifacts from other jobs in the same workflow.

include

The other mechanism is to include the dependency projects in the project we are building. This is done by using the project setting appDependencyProbingPaths, which specifies where to search for dependencies in general.

!NOTE

If you already set up useProjectDependencies, please remove this setting from .github/AL-Go-Settings.json. You don't need to run Update AL-Go System Files before building, but you will be notified to do so when building.

Now, modify DK/.AL-Go/settings.json and US/.AL-Go/settings.json by adding this property

  "appDependencyProbingPaths": [
    {
      "repo": ".",
      "release_status": "include",
      "projects": "W1"
    }
  ]

Specifying a "." in repo, means to search in the same repository for the depdency. Release_status include means that AL-Go will include the actual source from the dependent project instead of downloading just a specific build. Stage the changes, Commit them, and Sync.

The CI/CD workflow runs again and you can observe that all the builds finish successfully.

A look at the log reveals that it adds the mysolution.w1 folder to the list of folders it needs to build for this job, as it checks appDependencyProbingPaths.

!NOTE

This implies that mysolution.w1 will be compiled three times, and each project will contain its own copy of that app. The apps will be the same, but they will have different package IDs.

---

Index  next