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Writing nem packages
Authoring workflow

Authoring workflow

A catalog stays healthy with the same few commands in two loops: lint, fmt, test, and build for a new package; outdated, bump, test, and build for an existing one. diff shows what a checkout changes against what is live.

A new package

  1. Write pkgs/<name>/pkg.yaml, starting from the Quickstart shape.
  2. nem catalog lint . until it is clean.
  3. nem catalog fmt . to settle the layout.
  4. nem catalog test . --package <name> on each platform you can reach.
  5. For a built package, nem catalog build . --package <name> --push on each platform.
nem catalog lint .                             # no findings
nem catalog fmt .                              # stable layout, comments kept
nem catalog test . --package tool              # installs and runs test steps
nem catalog build . --package tool --push      # built packages only

Keeping packages current 

nem catalog outdated                           # which packages lag upstream
nem catalog bump . --package tool              # add the newer versions with checksums
nem catalog test . --package tool              # the new version installs and works
nem catalog build . --missing --push           # built packages: archives for the new versions

bump --dry-run reports what would be added without downloading or writing, which is the right first step in automation.

Before publishing

nem catalog diff compares the catalog you are working on with the one that is live:

nem catalog diff . registry.example/nem/catalog:v4                  # what this checkout changes
nem catalog diff . registry.example/nem/catalog:v4 --output json    # only changed rows, for scripts

The base, your checkout, is linted first. Each row is new, updated, or removed relative to the target, and the JSON form carries name, status, build, base, target, and diff, the versions the base adds. Publishing the result is covered under Publishing your own catalog.

A catalog repository's CI

The shape that works: lint and fmt on every change; diff --output json against the published catalog to find the packages that changed; test and build only those, one runner per platform; and publish from the default branch once the checks pass. Caching $NEM_HOME/packages between runs saves re-downloading dependencies, if the runs are long enough to notice.

Related

Testing packages