Definition
Definition are the basic building block of the KubeVela platform. A definition encapsulates an arbitrarily complex automation as a lego style module that can be used to compose an Application, then safely shared, and repeatably executed by any KubeVela engine.
There're four types of Definition, they're ComponentDefinition, TraitDefinition, PolicyDefinition and WorkflowStepDefinition, corresponding to the application concepts.
Sources of Definitions
There're two sources of definitions:
- Built-in definitions will be installed along with KubeVela helm chart. You can refer to the following links to learn more about built-in definitions.
- Installation of addons will install definitions if there're new capabilities contained. You can refer to the official addon registry for more details.
Lifecycle of a Definition
A definition's lifecycle usually has 3 stages:
Discovery
When definitions installed in the system, they can be discovered by end user immediately.
- Check the list:
$ vela def list
NAME TYPE NAMESPACE DESCRIPTION
webservice ComponentDefinition vela-system Describes long-running, scalable, containerized services
that have a stable network endpoint to receive external
network traffic from customers.
gateway TraitDefinition vela-system Enable public web traffic for the component, the ingress API
matches K8s v1.20+.
health PolicyDefinition vela-system Apply periodical health checking to the application.
notification WorkflowStepDefinition vela-system Send message to webhook
...snip...
- Show the details:
$ vela show webservice
# Properties
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+----------+---------+
| NAME | DESCRIPTION | TYPE | REQUIRED | DEFAULT |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+----------+---------+
| cmd | Commands to run in the container | []string | false | |
| env | Define arguments by using environment variables | [[]env](#env) | false | |
| labels | Specify the labels in the workload | map[string]string | false | |
| annotations | Specify the annotations in the workload | map[string]string | false | |
| image | Which image would you like to use for your service | string | true | |
| ports | Which ports do you want customer traffic sent to, defaults to 80 | [[]ports](#ports) | false | |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+----------+---------+
...snip...
You can also view the details with a browser, the following command will launch a server and invoke your browser automatically:
vela show webservice --web
- Discover in UI console
These definitions can also be discovered by the UI console, the more important thing is they can be displayed very well with ui schema defined.
Use
If you're a fan of our UI console, the usage of definition is very straight forward, just click along with the creation of the deployment process.
Finally, the UI console will compose the whole deployment plan in the format of OAM like below, then KubeVela controller will take care of the rest things:
apiVersion: core.oam.dev/v1beta1
kind: Application
metadata:
name: first-vela-app
spec:
components:
- name: express-server
type: webservice
properties:
image: oamdev/hello-world
ports:
- port: 8000
expose: true
traits:
- type: scaler
properties:
replicas: 1
policies:
- name: target-default
type: topology
properties:
clusters: ["local"]
namespace: "default"
- name: target-prod
type: topology
properties:
clusters: ["local"]
namespace: "prod"
- name: deploy-ha
type: override
properties:
components:
- type: webservice
traits:
- type: scaler
properties:
replicas: 2
workflow:
steps:
- name: deploy2default
type: deploy
properties:
policies: ["target-default"]
- name: manual-approval
type: suspend
- name: deploy2prod
type: deploy
properties:
policies: ["target-prod", "deploy-ha"]
Use the definition in command works the same, you can compose the application yaml manually and use vela command line tool to deploy.
vela up -f https://kubevela.net/example/applications/first-app.yaml
Customize
⚠️ In most cases, you don't need to customize any definitions unless you're going to extend the capability of KubeVela. Before that, you should check the built-in definitions and addons to confirm if they can fit your needs.
A new definition is built in a declarative template in CUE configuration language. If you're not familiar with CUE, you can refer to CUE Basic for some knowledge.
A definition describes the module's inputs, outputs, operations, and the wiring between them. Here is an example of a simple component definition:
webserver: {
type: "component"
attributes: {}
}
template: {
parameter: {
name: string
image: string
}
output: {
apiVersion: "apps/v1"
kind: "Deployment"
spec: {
containers: [{
name: parameter.name
image: parameter.image
}]
}
}
}
The type defines what kind of definition it is, the parameter defines the inputs, while the output section defines the outputs.
You can refer to detail docs about how to manage definition or learn the definition protocol.
Next Step
- View Architecture to learn the overall architecture of KubeVela.