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Manually creating TOSCA Cloud Service Archives (CSARs) consisting of node types, artifact templates, and topology templates is not so much fun: several abstraction layers paired with a sophisticated XML syntax makes managing CSARs challenging to say the least.

Therefore, toscafy aims to simplify this task without relying on a specific modeling tool. This enables CSARs as code: all sources and dependencies are stored in version-controlled source code repositories. You just create a csarspec.json file (think of it as an automatically executable CSAR construction plan) that exactly consists of the parts required to generate a corresponding CSAR consisting of node types, artifacts, and/or topologies. By using toscafy, CSARs are no longer maintained manually as source artifacts, but they are generated based on the CSAR spec. Thus, it is enough to store the CSAR spec and all related files such as scripts inside a version-controlled repository. An associated CI/CD pipeline could then rebuild, test, and publish the resulting CSARs when changes are committed. This helps to apply established CI/CD principles by automating the build and delivery process of CSARs.

Get started

First, you need to install toscafy. Node.js version 4 or better is required. Use npm to install toscafy:

npm install toscafy -g

Then you need to create a csarspec.json file. As a starting point, you could pick one from the csar-bricks repository. Change into the directory in which the csarspec.json file is located. Run the following command to generate a CSAR as directory:

toscafy generate -o /my/csar-dir

Alternatively, you could produce a CSAR that's already packaged as single ZIP file:

toscafy generate -p -o /my/csar.zip

Instead of installing toscafy on your machine, you can immediately run it using Docker:

docker run toscafy/cli --help

REST API server

You can also use the REST API server to interact or programmatically integrate with toscafy:

toscafy server

Alternatively using Docker:

docker run -p 3000:3000 toscafy/server

By default, the server listens on port 3000 for HTTP requests.

CSAR spec schema

A csarspec.json file is structured as follows:

{
  "csar_name":       (string),    # name of CSAR

  "node_types": {
    (nodeTypeName): {
      "properties_schema": {
        (nodeTypePropertyName): {
          "type":    (string),    # XSD type
          "default": (string),    # default value
          "input": [              # map input param
            (operationName) | "*"
          ],
          "output": [             # map output param
            (operationName) | "*"
          ]
        }
      },

      "operations": {
        (operationName): [
          (artifactName) | (artifactObject)
        ]
      },

      "deployment_artifacts": [
        (artifactName) | (artifactObject)
      ]
    }
  },

  "artifacts": {
    (artifactName): {
      "type": (string),   # artifact type
      "wrap": (string),   # wrap artifact as ...

      "properties": {
        (artifactPropertyName): (any)
      },

      "references": [
        (string)          # relative file path
      ]
    }
  },

  "topologies": {
    (topologyName): {
      "nodes": {
        (nodeName): {
          "type": (nodeTypeName),

          "properties": {
            (nodeTypePropertyName): (any)
          },

          "deployment_artifacts": [
            (artifactName) | (artifactObject)
          ]
        }
      },

      "relationships": {
        (relationshipName): {
          "type":   (string),     # relationship type
          "source": (nodeName),
          "target": (nodeName)
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Some parts are optional:

csar_name
node_types.(nodeTypeName).properties_schema
node_types.(nodeTypeName).properties_schema.(nodeTypePropertyName).default
node_types.(nodeTypeName).properties_schema.(nodeTypePropertyName).input
node_types.(nodeTypeName).properties_schema.(nodeTypePropertyName).output
node_types.(nodeTypeName).operations
node_types.(nodeTypeName).deployment_artifacts
artifacts.(artifactName).wrap
artifacts.(artifactName).properties
artifacts.(artifactName).references
topologies.(topologyName).nodes.(nodeName).properties
topologies.(topologyName).nodes.(nodeName).deployment_artifacts
topologies.(topologyName).relationships

Additional information can be added such as custom namespaces, descriptions, and interfaces:

csar_namespace
csar_description
node_types.(nodeTypeName).description
node_types.(nodeTypeName).namespace
node_types.(nodeTypeName).properties_schema.(nodeTypePropertyName).description
node_types.(nodeTypeName).interfaces.(interfaceName).implementation_artifacts = [ (artifactName) ]
node_types.(nodeTypeName).interfaces.(interfaceName).operations.(operationName).implementation_artifacts = [ (artifactName) ]
artifacts.(artifactName).description
artifacts.(artifactName).namespace
topologies.(topologyName).description
topologies.(topologyName).namespace

CSARs do not necessarily include topologies, but could also consist of node types or artifacts only. Have a look at csar-bricks to see examples. To inject XML snippets that define custom artifact types, relationship types, or XSD types, the following properties can optionally be added to the csarspec.json file:

{
  ...
  "artifact_types_xml": [
    (string)   # XML snippet
  ],
  "relationship_types_xml":  [
    (string)   # XML snippet
  ],
  "xsd_types_xml": [
    (string)   # XML snippet
  ]
}

Built-in types and functions

Please check the head of lib/Generator.js to see which artifact types, relationship types, and functions are currently built into toscafy.

CSAR specs can refer to built-in functions provided by toscafy. For example, the following artifact definition uses the $toscafy.fetchAsFile function to fetch a file and adds it to the generated CSAR:

{
  "artifacts": {
    "apache_install": {
      "type": "script",
      "references": [
        { "$toscafy.fetchAsFile": "http://.../some-file.json", "filename": "fetched-file.json" },
        "./some-script.sh"
      ]
    }
  }
}

You could also embed the content of a file into the CSAR spec:

{
  "artifacts": {
    "apache_install": {
      "type": "script",
      "properties": {
        "envVars": { "$toscafy.embedFileAsText": "./some-file.txt" }
      },
      "references": [
        "./some-script.sh"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Built-in functions can be included at any position in the csarspec.json file where an arbitrary value would be allowed. Currently, the following built-in functions are provided:

$toscafy.addFile adds a local file to the generated CSAR as filename
$toscafy.addDir adds a local directory to the generated CSAR as dirname
$toscafy.addDirAsZip adds a local directory (zip compressed) to the generated CSAR as filename
$toscafy.addDirAsTgz adds a local directory (tar-gz compressed) to the generated CSAR as filename
$toscafy.fetchAsFile fetches a remote file and adds it to the generated CSAR as filename
$toscafy.fetchAsText fetches the content of a remote file and includes it in the CSAR spec as text
$toscafy.fetchAsJson fetches the content (or a specific part of it, expressed as _.get path) of a remote file and includes it in the CSAR spec as JSON; if stringify is true, JSON content is included as string
$toscafy.fetchAsBase64 fetches the content of a remote file and includes it in the CSAR spec as Base64 string
$toscafy.embedFileAsText embeds the content of a local file into the CSAR spec as text
$toscafy.embedFileAsJson embeds the content (or a specific part of it, expressed as _.get path) of a local file into the CSAR spec as JSON; if stringify is true, JSON content is included as string
$toscafy.embedFileAsBase64 embeds the content of a local file into the CSAR spec as Base64 string
$toscafy.embedDirAsZipBase64 embeds the content of a local directory (zip compressed) into the CSAR spec as Base64 string
$toscafy.embedDirAsTgzBase64 embeds the content of a local directory (tar-gz compressed) into the CSAR spec as Base64 string