Dewey

• Introducing a standard for cataloguing software components throughout multiple repositories using simple JSON manifest files.
• A simple command line application for reading the manifests and performing simple actions described by them. Such as building, deploying and graphing dependencies.

Command Line application

The current trend in software design is to break up large, complicated software systems into a collection of many smaller, simpler components. e.g. micro services.
The dewey command line tool is designed to help alleviate some of the problems of working on a large system.
By reading the necessary information from the appropriate set of manifest files, dewey can help perform more complex tasks in a simple instruction. Such as:

• Build a component.
• Deploy a component.
• Graph component dependencies.

Getting Started

Dewey is available as a chocolatey package (latest package can be found here) and can be installed in a single command.

$ choco install dewey

The installation can be simply tested by typing 'dewey'. If successful, the version number and a list of available commands will be displayed.

$ dewey
Dewey Development Tool. v0.0.60
Usage: dewey <command>
Commands:
 - list
 - build
 - deploy
 - graph

Commands

• The list command loads all discoverable manifests and lists the known components and runtime-resources. More information can be found here.
• The build command loads all discoverable manifests and attempts to build the component that matches the given name. All the component's dependencies can also be built. More information can be found here.
• The deploy command loads all discoverable manifests and attempts to deploy the component that matches the given name. All the component's dependencies can also be built. More information can be found here.
• The graph command loads all discoverable manifests and builds a dependency graph of all the known components and runtime resources. More information can be found here.

Manifest File

Dewey manifest files dewey.json are used to capture the location of components in a repository and information required to perform different tasks. The following root information can be captured:

• Location of other manifest files.
• Details about components.
• Details about runtime resources used by components.

More information and examples about Manifest Files can be found here.