Develop a plugin and activate it in Aura Bridge

Introduction

The process for the generation of a plugin and its activation or deletion in aura-bridge includes the following steps:

• Plugin development
• Plugin activation in Aura bridge
• Plugin removal (if required)

Plugin development

Install aura-development-cli (aucli)

To generate a new plugin, use aucli, a set of tools available in the “Command Line Interface” format to help you with development and testing.

How to use aucli?

• Access the “help” command:

  $ aucli bridge -h
  
  Usage: aucli bridge [options] [command]
  
  tasks associated with 'bridge' commands
  
  Options:
    -h, --help      display help for command
  
  Commands:
    generate        tasks associated with 'generate' commands
    help [command]  display help for command
  

• Execute the following command in the aura-bridge project path:

  $ aucli bridge generate plugin
  
  ✔ Whats the origin of the process? (ex.: Directline, Whatsapp, ...)? · channel1
  ✔ Whats the destination of the process? (ex.: Directline, Whatsapp, ...)? · channel2
  ✔ The name of processor is correct? (y/N) · true
  

• The following files will be generated in aura-bridge:

  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-consume-services.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-controller.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-to-channel2-converter.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/error-to-channel2-api-converter.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-flow.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/index.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/package.json
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-destination-channel2-response-error.ts
  added: src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-utils.ts
  

Add a new swagger

• Add a swagger inside your plugin in the path:
  src/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/swagger.yaml

  openapi: 3.0.0
  info:
    title: administration api to aura bridge
    description: Set of endpoints related to bridge administration
    version: 1.0.0
  tags:
    - name: admin
      description: Bridge administration plugin
  servers:
    - url: 'http://localhost:8045'
      description: Local server
    - url: 'https://svc-ap-current.auracognitive.com'
      description: ap-current
  paths:
    /aura-services/v1/testing/channel1: # include the path to the new plugin
        get:
          tags:
            - testing-channe1
          description: channel1 testing.
          operationId: getChannel1Messages # controller function name.
          x-router-controller: plugins # in path src/controllers/plugins.ts
          responses:
            '200':
              description: OK
              headers: { }
            '500':
              description: An internal server error has occurred.
  

Add a new function controller

• Add all the controllers in the path: src/controllers/plugins.ts

  import Channel1Channel2Message from '../plugins/channel1-channel2-processor/channel1-channel2-controller';
  
  export function getChannel1Messages(req: express.Request, res: express.Response) {
      Channel1Channel2Message.controller(req, res);
  }
  

Plugin activation in Aura bridge

Every plugin to be loaded in aura-bridge must be defined in the plugin-config.json file.

⚠️ If this plugin has dependence with other plugins, they must also be added to the plugins list. If during the aura-bridge boot a plugin has a dependency with another not installed plugin, the bridge will fail in the boot process and will log an error indicating the lost dependency.

• Add the plugin to the configuration file plugin-config.json (located at the root of the aura-bridge project):

[
    ...
    "./lib/plugins/channel1-channel2-processor",
    ...
]

Activate a new plugin during development

To activate a new plugin during development, it is only necessary to add the plugin path in the plugin-config.json file:

[
    "./lib/plugins/directline-service",
    "./lib/plugins/directline-whatsapp-processor",
    "./lib/plugins/whatsapp-incoming-processor",
    "./lib/plugins/whatsapp-service",
    // New plugin location here.
]

⚠️ take into account the dependencies with other plugins, as explained in the previous section.

Activate a new plugin for production

To add a new plugin in production, it is necessary to define the list of plugins using the plugin-config.json key in the aura-bridge ConfigMap for deployment in Kubernetes.

Example of aura-bridge ConfigMap using a configuration file:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: aura-bridge
  labels:
    app: aura-bridge
    stack: service
  namespace: {{ kubernetes_core_namespace }}
data: 
  plugin-config.json: |
    {{ lookup('file','<FOLDER_PATH>/plugin-config.json',convert_data=False) | indent(4,indentfirst=False) }}    

Plugin removal in Aura bridge

To remove a plugin, it is only necessary to delete the plugin path in the plugin-config.json file.

⚠️ In order to eliminate a plugin correctly, it is necessary to verify that no other plugins from those installed depends on the one we want to eliminate.