This is the multi-page printable view of this section. Click here to print.

Return to the regular view of this page.

Documentation

Orchestrator

Choose a section from the list below. For Orchestrator introduction, check the Quick Start.

1 - Quick Start

Quickstart Guide

This quickstart guide will help you install the Orchestrator using the Helm-based operator and execute a sample workflow through the Red Hat Developer Hub orchestrator plugin UI.

  1. Install Orchestrator: Follow the installation instructions for Orchestrator.

  2. Install a sample workflow: Follow the installation instructions for the greetings workflow.

  3. Access Red Hat Developer Hub: Open your web browser and navigate to the Red Hat Developer Hub application. Retrieve the URL using the following OpenShift CLI command.

    oc get route backstage-backstage -n rhdh-operator -o jsonpath='{.spec.host}'

    Make sure the route is accessible to you locally.

  4. Login to Backstage Login to Backstage with the Guest account.

  5. Navigate to Orchestrator: Navigate to the Orchestrator page by clicking on the Orchestrator icon in the left navigation menu. orchestratorIcon

  6. Execute Greeting Workflow: Click on the ‘Execute’ button in the ACTIONS column of the Greeting workflow. workflowsPage The ‘Run workflow’ page will open. Click ‘Next step’ and then ‘Run’ executePageNext executePageRun

  7. Monitor Workflow Status: Wait for the status of the Greeting workflow execution to become Completed. This may take a moment. workflowCompleted

2 - Architecture

The Orchestrator architecture comprises several integral components, each contributing to the seamless execution and management of workflows. Illustrated below is a breakdown of these components:

  • Red Hat Developer Hub: Serving as the primary interface, Backstage fulfills multiple roles:
    • Orchestrator Plugins: Both frontend and backend plugins are instrumental in presenting deployed workflows for execution and monitoring.
    • Notifications Plugin: Employs notifications to inform users or groups about workflow events.
  • OpenShift Serverless Logic Operator: This controller manages the Sonataflow custom resource (CR), where each CR denotes a deployed workflow.
  • Sonataflow Runtime/Workflow Application: As a deployed workflow, Sonataflow Runtime is currently managed as a Kubernetes (K8s) deployment by the operator. It operates as an HTTP server, catering to requests for executing workflow instances. Within the Orchestrator deployment, each Sonataflow CR corresponds to a singular workflow. However, outside this scope, Sonataflow Runtime can handle multiple workflows. Interaction with Sonataflow Runtime for workflow execution is facilitated by the Orchestrator backend plugin.
  • Data Index Service: This serves as a repository for workflow definitions, instances, and their associated jobs. It exposes a GraphQL API, utilized by the Orchestrator backend plugin to retrieve workflow definitions and instances.
  • Job Service: Dedicated to orchestrating scheduled tasks for workflows.
  • OpenShift Serverless: This operator furnishes serverless capabilities essential for workflow communication. It employs Knative eventing to interface with the Data Index service and leverages Knative functions to introduce more intricate logic to workflows.
  • OpenShift AMQ Streams (Strimzi/Kafka): While not presently integrated into the deployment’s current iteration, this operator is crucial for ensuring the reliability of the eventing system.
  • KeyCloak: Responsible for authentication and security services within applications. While not installed by the Orchestrator operator, it is essential for enhancing security measures.
  • PostgreSQL Server - Utilized for storing both Sonataflow information and Backstage data, PostgreSQL Server provides a robust and reliable database solution essential for data persistence within the Orchestrator ecosystem.
Architecture Context Diagram Architecture Container Diagram Architecture Diagram

3 - Core Concepts

3.1 - Workflow Types

The Orchestrator features two primary workflow categories:

  • Infrastructure workflows: focus on automating infrastructure-related tasks
  • Assessment workflows: focus on evaluating and analyzing data to suggest suitable infrastructure workflow options for subsequent execution

Infrastructure workflow

In the Orchestrator, an infrastructure refers to a workflow that executes a sequence of operations based on user input (optional) and generates output (optional) without requiring further action.

To define this type, developers need to include the following annotation in the workflow definition file:

annotations:
  - "workflow-type/infrastructure"

The Orchestrator plugin utilizes this metadata to facilitate the processing and visualization of infrastructure workflow inputs and outputs within the user interface.

Examples:

Assessment workflow

In the Orchestrator, an assessment is akin to an infrastructure workflow that concludes with a recommended course of action. Upon completion, the assessment yields a workflowOptions object, which presents a list of infrastructure workflows suitable from the user’s inputs evaluation.

To define this type, developers must include the following annotation in the workflow definition file:

annotations:
  - "workflow-type/assessment"

The Orchestrator plugin utilizes this metadata to facilitate the processing and visualization of assessment workflow inputs and outputs within the user interface. This includes generating links to initiate infrastructure workflows from the list of recommended options, enabling seamless execution and integration.

The workflowOptions object must possess six essential attributes with specific types, including lists that can be empty or contain objects with id and name properties, similar to the currentVersion attribute. See an example in the below code snippet.

It is the assessment workflow developer’s responsibility to ensure that the provided workflow id in each workflowOptions attribute exists and is available in the environment.

{
    "workflowOptions": {
      "currentVersion": {
        "id": "_AN_INFRASTRUCTURE_WORKFLOW_ID_",
        "name": "_AN_INFRASTRUCTURE_WORKFLOW_NAME_"
      },
      "newOptions": [],
      "otherOptions": [],
      "upgradeOptions": [],
      "migrationOptions": [
        {
            "id": "_ANOTHER_INFRASTRUCTURE_WORKFLOW_ID_",
            "name": "_ANOTHER_INFRASTRUCTURE_WORKFLOW_NAME_"
        }
      ],
      "continuationOptions": []
    }
}
Examples:

Note

If the aforementioned annotation is missing in the workflow definition file, the Orchestrator plugin will default to treating the workflow as an infrastructure workflow, without considering its output.

To avoid unexpected behavior and ensure clarity, it is strongly advised to always include the annotation to explicitly specify the workflow type, preventing any surprises or misinterpretations.

4 - Installation

The deployment of the orchestrator involves multiple independent components, each with its unique installation process. In an OpenShift Cluster, the Red Hat Catalog provides an operator that can handle the installation for you. This installation process is modular, as the CRD exposes various flags that allow you to control which components to install. For a vanilla Kubernetes, there is a helm chart that installs the orchestrator compoments.

The Orchestrator deployment encompasses the installation of the engine for serving serverless workflows and Backstage, integrated with orchestrator plugins for workflow invocation, monitoring, and control.

In addition to the Orchestrator deployment, we offer several workflows (linked below) that can be deployed using their respective installation methods.

4.1 - Orchestrator on OpenShift

Installing the Orchestrator is facilitated through an operator available in the Red Hat Catalog in the OLM package. This operator is responsible for installing all of the Orchestrator components. The Orchestrator is based on the SonataFlow and the Serverless Workflow technologies to design and manage the workflows. The Orchestrator plugins are deployed on a Red Hat Developer Hub instance, which serves as the frontend.

When installing a Red Hat Developer Hub (RHDH) instance using the Orchestrator operator, the RHDH configuration is managed through the Orchestrator resource.

To utilize Backstage capabilities, the Orchestrator imports software templates designed to ease the development of new workflows and offers an opinionated method for managing their lifecycle by including CI/CD resources as part of the template.

Orchestrator Documentation

For comprehensive documentation on the Orchestrator, please visit https://www.parodos.dev.

Installing the Orchestrator Helm Operator

Deploy the Orchestrator solution suite in an OCP cluster using the Orchestrator operator.
The operator installs the following components onto the target OpenShift cluster:

  • RHDH (Red Hat Developer Hub) Backstage
  • OpenShift Serverless Logic Operator (with Data-Index and Job Service)
  • OpenShift Serverless Operator
    • Knative Eventing
    • Knative Serving
  • (Optional) An ArgoCD project named orchestrator. Requires an pre-installed ArgoCD/OpenShift GitOps instance in the cluster. Disabled by default
  • (Optional) Tekton tasks and build pipeline. Requires an pre-installed Tekton/OpenShift Pipelines instance in the cluster. Disabled by default

Important Note for ARM64 Architecture Users

Note that as of November 6, 2023, OpenShift Serverless Operator is based on RHEL 8 images which are not supported on the ARM64 architecture. Consequently, deployment of this operator on an OpenShift Local cluster on MacBook laptops with M1/M2 chips is not supported.

Prerequisites

  • Logged in to a Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform (version 4.13+) cluster as a cluster administrator.
  • OpenShift CLI (oc) is installed.
  • Operator Lifecycle Manager (OLM) has been installed in your cluster.
  • Your cluster has a default storage class provisioned.
  • A GitHub API Token - to import items into the catalog, ensure you have a GITHUB_TOKEN with the necessary permissions as detailed here.
    • For classic token, include the following permissions:
      • repo (all)
      • admin:org (read:org)
      • user (read:user, user:email)
      • workflow (all) - required for using the software templates for creating workflows in GitHub
    • For Fine grained token:
      • Repository permissions: Read access to metadata, Read and Write access to actions, actions variables, administration, code, codespaces, commit statuses, environments, issues, pull requests, repository hooks, secrets, security events, and workflows.
      • Organization permissions: Read access to members, Read and Write access to organization administration, organization hooks, organization projects, and organization secrets.

Deployment with GitOps

If you plan to deploy in a GitOps environment, make sure you have installed the ArgoCD/Red Hat OpenShift GitOps and the Tekton/Red Hat Openshift Pipelines Install operators following these instructions. The Orchestrator installs RHDH and imports software templates designed for bootstrapping workflow development. These templates are crafted to ease the development lifecycle, including a Tekton pipeline to build workflow images and generate workflow K8s custom resources. Furthermore, ArgoCD is utilized to monitor any changes made to the workflow repository and to automatically trigger the Tekton pipelines as needed.

  • ArgoCD/OpenShift GitOps operator

    • Ensure at least one instance of ArgoCD exists in the designated namespace (referenced by ARGOCD_NAMESPACE environment variable). Example here
    • Validated API is argoproj.io/v1alpha1/AppProject

  • Tekton/OpenShift Pipelines operator

    • Validated APIs are tekton.dev/v1beta1/Task and tekton.dev/v1/Pipeline
    • Requires ArgoCD installed since the manifests are deployed in the same namespace as the ArgoCD instance.

    Remember to enable argocd and tekton in your CR instance.

Installation

  1. Deploy the PostgreSQL reference implementation for persistence support in SonataFlow following these instructions

  2. Create a namespace for the Orchestrator solution:

    oc new-project orchestrator

  3. Create a namespace for the Red Hat Developer Hub Operator (RHDH Operator):

    oc new-project rhdh-operator

  4. Download the setup script from the github repository and run it to create the RHDH secret and label the GitOps namespaces:

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/parodos-dev/orchestrator-helm-operator/main/hack/setup.sh -O /tmp/setup.sh && chmod u+x /tmp/setup.sh

    Run the script:

    /tmp/setup.sh --use-default

    NOTE: If you don’t want to use the default values, omit the --use-default and the script will prompt you for input.

    The contents will vary depending on the configuration in the cluster. The following list details all the keys that can appear in the secret:

    • BACKEND_SECRET: Value is randomly generated at script execution. This is the only mandatory key required to be in the secret for the RHDH Operator to start.
    • K8S_CLUSTER_URL: The URL of the Kubernetes cluster is obtained dynamically using oc whoami --show-server.
    • K8S_CLUSTER_TOKEN: The value is obtained dynamically based on the provided namespace and service account.
    • GITHUB_TOKEN: This value is prompted from the user during script execution and is not predefined.
    • GITHUB_CLIENT_ID and GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET: The value for both these fields are used to authenticate against GitHub. For more information open this link.
    • ARGOCD_URL: This value is dynamically obtained based on the first ArgoCD instance available.
    • ARGOCD_USERNAME: Default value is set to admin.
    • ARGOCD_PASSWORD: This value is dynamically obtained based on the first ArgoCD instance available.

    Keys will not be added to the secret if they have no values associated. So for instance, when deploying in a cluster without the GitOps operators, the ARGOCD_URL, ARGOCD_USERNAME and ARGOCD_PASSWORD keys will be omited in the secret.

    Sample of a secret created in a GitOps environment:

    $> oc get secret -n rhdh-operator -o yaml backstage-backend-auth-secret
apiVersion: v1
data:
  ARGOCD_PASSWORD: ...
  ARGOCD_URL: ...
  ARGOCD_USERNAME: ...
  BACKEND_SECRET: ...
  GITHUB_TOKEN: ...
  K8S_CLUSTER_TOKEN: ...
  K8S_CLUSTER_URL: ...
kind: Secret
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: "2024-05-07T22:22:59Z"
  name: backstage-backend-auth-secret
  namespace: rhdh-operator
  resourceVersion: "4402773"
  uid: 2042e741-346e-4f0e-9d15-1b5492bb9916
type: Opaque

  5. Use the following manifest to install the operator in an OCP cluster:

    apiVersion: operators.coreos.com/v1alpha1
kind: Subscription
metadata:
  name: orchestrator-operator
  namespace: openshift-operators
spec:
  channel: alpha
  installPlanApproval: Automatic
  name: orchestrator-operator
  source: redhat-operators
  sourceNamespace: openshift-marketplace

  6. Run the following commands to determine when the installation is completed:

    wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/parodos-dev/orchestrator-helm-operator/main/hack/wait_for_operator_installed.sh -O /tmp/wait_for_operator_installed.sh && chmod u+x /tmp/wait_for_operator_installed.sh && /tmp/wait_for_operator_installed.sh

    During the installation process, Kubernetes cronjobs are created by the operator to monitor the lifecycle of the CRs managed by the operator: RHDH operator, OpenShift Serverless operator and OpenShift Serverless Logic operator. When deleting one of the previously mentioned CRs, a job is triggered that ensures the CR is removed before the operator is. In case of any failure at this stage, these jobs remain active, facilitating administrators in retrieving detailed diagnostic information to identify and address the cause of the failure.

    Note: that every minute on the clock a job is triggered to reconcile the CRs with the orchestrator resource values. These cronjobs are deleted when their respective features (e.g. rhdhOperator.enabled=false) are removed or when the orchestrator resource is removed. This is required because the CRs are not managed by helm due to the CRD dependency pre availability to the deployment of the CR.

  7. Apply the Orchestrator custom resource (CR) on the cluster to create an instance of RHDH and resources of OpenShift Serverless Operator and OpenShift Serverless Operator Logic. Make any changes to the CR before applying it, or test the default Orchestrator CR:

    oc apply -n orchestrator -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/parodos-dev/orchestrator-helm-operator/refs/heads/main/config/samples/_v1alpha1_orchestrator.yaml

Additional information

Additional Workflow Namespaces

When deploying a workflow in a namespace different from where Sonataflow services are running (e.g., sonataflow-infra), several essential steps must be followed:

  1. Label the Workflow Namespace: To allow Sonataflow services to accept traffic from workflows, apply the following label to the desired workflow namespace:

       oc label ns $ADDITIONAL_NAMESPACE rhdh.redhat.com/workflow-namespace=""

  2. Identify the RHDH Namespace: Retrieve the namespace where RHDH is running by executing:

       oc get backstage -A

    Store the namespace value in RHDH_NAMESPACE in the Network Policy manifest below.

  3. Identify the Sonataflow Services Namespace: Check the namespace where Sonataflow services are deployed:

       oc get sonataflowclusterplatform -A

    If there is no cluster platform, check for a namespace-specific platform:

       oc get sonataflowplatform -A

    Store the namespace value in SONATAFLOW_PLATFORM_NAMESPACE.

  4. Set Up a Network Policy: Configure a network policy to allow traffic only between RHDH, Sonataflow services, and the workflows. The policy can be derived from here

    oc create -f <<EOF
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: allow-rhdh-to-sonataflow-and-workflows
  # Sonataflow and Workflows are using the same namespace.
  namespace: $ADDITIONAL_NAMESPACE
spec:
  podSelector: {}
  ingress:
    - from:
      - namespaceSelector:
          matchLabels:
            # Allow RHDH namespace to communicate with workflows.
            kubernetes.io/metadata.name: $RHDH_NAMESPACE
      - namespaceSelector:
          matchLabels:
            # Allow Sonataflow services to communicate with workflows.
            kubernetes.io/metadata.name: $SONATAFLOW_PLATFORM_NAMESPACE
EOF

  5. Ensure Persistence for the Workflow: If persistence is required, follow these steps:

  • Create a PostgreSQL Secret: The workflow needs its own schema in PostgreSQL. Create a secret containing the PostgreSQL credentials in the workflow’s namespace:
    oc get secret sonataflow-psql-postgresql -n sonataflow-infra -o yaml > secret.yaml
sed -i '/namespace: sonataflow-infra/d' secret.yaml
oc apply -f secret.yaml -n $ADDITIONAL_NAMESPACE
  • Configure the Namespace Attribute: Add the namespace attribute under the serviceRef property where the PostgreSQL server is deployed.
    apiVersion: sonataflow.org/v1alpha08
kind: SonataFlow
  ...
spec:
  ...
  persistence:
    postgresql:
      secretRef:
        name: sonataflow-psql-postgresql
        passwordKey: postgres-password
        userKey: postgres-username
      serviceRef:
        databaseName: sonataflow
        databaseSchema: greeting
        name: sonataflow-psql-postgresql
        namespace: $POSTGRESQL_NAMESPACE
        port: 5432
    Replace POSTGRESQL_NAMESPACE with the namespace where the PostgreSQL server is deployed.

By following these steps, the workflow will have the necessary credentials to access PostgreSQL and will correctly reference the service in a different namespace.

GitOps environment

See the dedicated document

Deploying PostgreSQL reference implementation

See here

ArgoCD and workflow namespace

If you manually created the workflow namespaces (e.g., $WORKFLOW_NAMESPACE), run this command to add the required label that allows ArgoCD to deploy instances there:

oc label ns $WORKFLOW_NAMESPACE argocd.argoproj.io/managed-by=$ARGOCD_NAMESPACE

Workflow installation

Follow Workflows Installation

Cleanup

/!\ Before removing the orchestrator, make sure you have first removed any installed workflows. Otherwise the deletion may become hung in a terminating state.

To remove the operator from the cluster, delete the subscription:

oc delete subscriptions.operators.coreos.com orchestrator-operator -n openshift-operators

Note that the CRDs created during the installation process will remain in the cluster.

To clean the rest of the resources, run:

oc get crd -o name | grep -e sonataflow -e rhdh | xargs oc delete
oc delete namespace orchestrator sonataflow-infra rhdh-operator

If you want to remove knative related resources, you may also run:

oc get crd -o name | grep -e knative | xargs oc delete

4.2 - Orchestrator on Kubernetes

The following guide is for installing on a Kubernetes cluster. It is well tested and working in CI with a kind installation.

Here’s a kind configuration that is easy to work with (the apiserver port is static, so the kubeconfig is always the same)

kind: Cluster
apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4
networking:
  apiServerAddress: "127.0.0.1"
  apiServerPort: 16443
nodes:
  - role: control-plane
    kubeadmConfigPatches:
    - |
      kind: InitConfiguration
      nodeRegistration:
        kubeletExtraArgs:
          node-labels: "ingress-ready=true"      
    - |
      kind: KubeletConfiguration
      localStorageCapacityIsolation: true      
    extraPortMappings:
      - containerPort: 80
        hostPort: 9090
        protocol: TCP
      - containerPort: 443
        hostPort: 9443
        protocol: TCP
  - role: worker

Save this file as kind-config.yaml, and now run:

kind create cluster --config kind-config.yaml
kubectl apply -f https://projectcontour.io/quickstart/contour.yaml
kubectl patch daemonsets -n projectcontour envoy -p '{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"nodeSelector":{"ingress-ready":"true"},"tolerations":[{"key":"node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane","operator":"Equal","effect":"NoSchedule"},{"key":"node-role.kubernetes.io/master","operator":"Equal","effect":"NoSchedule"}]}}}}'

The cluster should be up and running with Contour ingress-controller installed, so localhost:9090 will direct the traffic to Backstage, because of the ingress created by the helm chart on port 80.

Orchestrator-k8s helm chart

This chart will install the Orchestrator and all its dependencies on kubernetes.

THIS CHART IS NOT SUITED FOR PRODUCTION PURPOSES, you should only use it for development or tests purposes

The chart deploys:

Usage

helm repo add orchestrator https://parodos-dev.github.io/orchestrator-helm-chart

helm install orchestrator orchestrator/orchestrator-k8s

Configuration

All of the backstage app-config is derived from the values.yaml.

Secrets as env vars:

To use secret as env vars, like the one used for the notification, see charts/Orchestrator-k8s/templates/secret.yaml Every key in that secret will be available in the app-config for resolution.

Development

git clone https://github.com/parodos-dev.github.io/orchestrator-helm-chart
cd orchestrator-helm-chart/charts/orchestrator-k8s


helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
helm repo add backstage https://backstage.github.io/charts
helm repo add postgresql-persistent https://sclorg.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo add redhat-developer https://redhat-developer.github.io/rhdh-chart
helm repo add workflows https://parodos.dev/serverless-workflows-config

helm dependencies build
helm install orchestrator .

The output should look like that

$ helm install orchestrator .
Release "orchestrator" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
NAME: orchestrator
LAST DEPLOYED: Tue Sep 19 18:19:07 2023
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: deployed
REVISION: 1
NOTES:
This chart will install RHDH-backstage(RHDH upstream) + Serverless Workflows.

To get RHDH's route location:
    $ oc get route orchestrator-white-backstage -o jsonpath='https://{ .spec.host }{"\n"}'

To get the serverless workflow operator status:
    $ oc get deploy -n sonataflow-operator-system 

To get the serverless workflows status:
    $ oc get sf

The chart notes will provide more information on:

  • route location of backstage
  • the sonata operator status
  • the sonata workflow deployed status

4.3 - Orchestrator on existing RHDH instance

When RHDH is already installed and in use, reinstalling it is unnecessary. Instead, integrating the Orchestrator into such an environment involves a few key steps:

  1. Utilize the Orchestrator operator to install the requisite components, such as the OpenShift Serverless Logic Operator and the OpenShift Serverless Operator, while ensuring the RHDH installation is disabled.
  2. Manually update the existing RHDH ConfigMap resources with the necessary configuration for the Orchestrator plugin.
  3. Import the Orchestrator software templates into the Backstage catalog.

Prerequisites

  • RHDH is already deployed with a running Backstage instance.
    • Software templates for workflows requires GitHub provider to be configured.
  • Ensure that a PostgreSQL database is available and that you have credentials to manage the tablespace (optional).
    • For your convenience, a reference implementation is provided.
    • If you already have a PostgreSQL database installed, please refer to this note regarding default settings.

In this approach, since the RHDH instance is not managed by the Orchestrator operator, its configuration is handled through the Backstage CR along with the associated resources, such as ConfigMaps and Secrets.

The installation steps are detailed here.

4.4 - Workflows

In addition to deploying the Orchestrator, we provide several preconfigured workflows that serve either as ready-to-use solutions or as starting points for customizing workflows according to the user’s requirements. These workflows can be installed either through a Helm chart.

4.4.1 - Deploy From Helm Repository

Orchestrator Workflows Helm Repository

This repository serves as a Helm chart repository for deploying serverless workflows with the Sonataflow Operator. It encompasses a collection of pre-defined workflows, each tailored to specific use cases. These workflows have undergone thorough testing and validation through Continuous Integration (CI) processes and are organized according to their chart versions.

The repository includes a variety of serverless workflows, such as:

  • Greeting: A basic example workflow to demonstrate functionality.
  • Migration Toolkit for Application Analysis (MTA): This workflow evaluates applications to determine potential risks and the associated costs of containerizing the applications.
  • Move2Kube: Designed to facilitate the transition of an application to Kubernetes (K8s) environments.
  • …

Usage

Prerequisites

To utilize the workflows contained in this repository, the Orchestrator Deployment must be installed on your OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) cluster. For detailed instructions on installing the Orchestrator, please visit the Orchestrator Helm Based Operator Repository

Installation

helm repo add orchestrator-workflows https://parodos.dev/serverless-workflows-config

View available workflows on the Helm repository:

helm search repo orchestrator-workflows

The expected result should look like (with different versions):

NAME                            	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION                                      
orchestrator-workflows/greeting 	0.4.2        	1.16.0     	A Helm chart for the greeting serverless workflow
orchestrator-workflows/move2kube	0.2.16       	1.16.0     	A Helm chart to deploy the move2kube workflow.   
orchestrator-workflows/mta      	0.2.16       	1.16.0     	A Helm chart for MTA serverless workflow         
orchestrator-workflows/workflows	0.2.24       	1.16.0     	A Helm chart for serverless workflows
...

You can install the workflows following their respective README

Installing workflows in additional namespaces

When deploying a workflow in a namespace different from where Sonataflow services are running (e.g. sonataflow-infra), there are essential steps to follow. For detailed instructions, see the Additional Workflow Namespaces section.

Version Compatability

The workflows rely on components included in the Orchestrator Operator. Therefore, it is crucial to match the workflow version with the corresponding Orchestrator version that supports it. The list below outlines the compatibility between the workflows and Orchestrator versions:

WorkflowsChart VersionOrchestrator Operator Version
mta-analysis0.3.x1.2.x
move2kube0.3.x1.2.x
create-ocp-project0.1.x1.2.x
request-vm-cnv0.1.x1.2.x
modify-vm-resources0.1.x1.2.x
mta-v60.2.x1.2.x
mta-v70.2.371.2.x
mtv-migration0.0.x1.2.x
mtv-plan0.0.131.2.x

Helm index

https://www.parodos.dev/serverless-workflows-config/index.yaml

5 - Serverless Workflows

A serverless workflow in Orchestrator refers to a sequence of operations that run in response to user input (optional) and produce output (optional) without requiring any ongoing management of the underlying infrastructure. The workflow is executed automatically, and frees users from having to manage or provision servers. This simplifies the process by allowing the focus to remain on the logic of the workflow, while the infrastructure dynamically adapts to handle the execution.

5.1 - Assessment

5.1.1 - MTA Analysis

MTA - migration analysis workflow

Synopsis

This workflow is an assessment workflow type, that invokes an application analysis workflow using MTA and returns the move2kube workflow reference, to run next if the analysis is considered to be successful.

Users are encouraged to use this workflow as self-service alternative for interacting with the MTA UI. Instead of running a mass-migration of project from a managed place, the project stakeholders can use this (or automation) to regularly check the cloud-readiness compatibility of their code.

Inputs

  • repositoryUrl [mandatory] - the git repo url to examine
  • recipients [mandatory] - A list of recipients for the notification in the format of user:<namespace>/<username> or group:<namespace>/<groupname>, i.e. user:default/jsmith.

Output

  1. On completion the workflow returns an options structure in the exit state of the workflow (also named variables in SonataFlow) linking to the move2kube workflow that will generate k8s manifests for container deployment.
  2. When the workflow completes there should be a report link on the exit state of the workflow (also named variables in SonataFlow) Currently this is working with MTA version 6.2.x and in the future 7.x version the report link will be removed or will be made optional. Instead of an html report the workflow will use a machine friendly json file.

Dependencies

  • MTA version 6.2.x or Konveyor 0.2.x

    • For OpenShift install MTA using the OperatorHub, search for MTA. Documentation is here
    • For Kubernetes install Konveyor with olm
      kubectl create -f https://operatorhub.io/install/konveyor-0.2/konveyor-operator.yaml

Runtime configuration

keydefaultdescription
mta.urlhttp://mta-ui.openshift-mta.svc.cluster.local:8080Endpoint (with protocol and port) for MTA
quarkus.rest-client.mta_json.url${mta.url}/hubMTA hub api
quarkus.rest-client.notifications.url${BACKSTAGE_NOTIFICATIONS_URL:http://backstage-backstage.rhdh-operator/api/notifications/}Backstage notification url
quarkus.rest-client.mta_json.auth.basicAuth.usernameusernameUsername for the MTA api
quarkus.rest-client.mta_json.auth.basicAuth.passwordpasswordPassword for the MTA api

All the configuration items are on [./application.properties]

For running and testing the workflow refer to mta testing.

Workflow Diagram

mta workflow diagram

5.2 - Infrastructure

5.2.1 - Simple Escalation

Simple escalation workflow

An escalation workflow integrated with Atlassian JIRA using SonataFlow.

Prerequisite

  • Access to a Jira server (URL, user and API token)
  • Access to an OpenShift cluster with admin Role

Workflow diagram

Escalation workflow diagram

Note: The value of the .jiraIssue.fields.status.statusCategory.key field is the one to be used to identify when the done status is reached, all the other similar fields are subject to translation to the configured language and cannot be used for a consistent check.

Application configuration

Application properties can be initialized from environment variables before running the application:

Environment variableDescriptionMandatoryDefault value
JIRA_URLThe Jira server URL✅
JIRA_USERNAMEThe Jira server username✅
JIRA_API_TOKENThe Jira API Token✅
JIRA_PROJECTThe key of the Jira project where the escalation issue is created❌TEST
JIRA_ISSUE_TYPEThe ID of the Jira issue type to be created✅
OCP_API_SERVER_URLThe OpensShift API Server URL✅
OCP_API_SERVER_TOKENThe OpensShift API Server Token✅
ESCALATION_TIMEOUT_SECONDSThe number of seconds to wait before triggering the escalation request, after the issue has been created❌60
POLLING_PERIODICITY(1)The polling periodicity of the issue state checker, according to ISO 8601 duration format❌PT6S

(1) This is still hardcoded as PT5S while waiting for a fix to KOGITO-9811

How to run

mvn clean quarkus:dev

Example of POST to trigger the flow (see input schema in ocp-onboarding-schema.json):

curl -XPOST -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/ticket-escalation -d '{"namespace": "_YOUR_NAMESPACE_"}'

Tips:

  • Visit Workflow Instances
  • Visit (Data Index Query Service)[http://localhost:8080/q/graphql-ui/]

5.2.2 - Move2Kube

Move2kube (m2k) workflow

Context

This workflow is using https://move2kube.konveyor.io/ to migrate the existing code contained in a git repository to a K8s/OCP platform.

Once the transformation is over, move2kube provides a zip file containing the transformed repo.

Design diagram

sequence_diagram.svg design.svg

Workflow

m2k.svg

Note that if an error occurs during the migration planning there is no feedback given by the move2kube instance API. To overcome this, we defined a maximum amount of retries (move2kube_get_plan_max_retries) to execute while getting the planning before exiting with an error. By default the value is set to 10 and it can be overridden with the environment variable MOVE2KUBE_GET_PLAN_MAX_RETRIES.

Workflow application configuration

Move2kube workflow

Application properties can be initialized from environment variables before running the application:

Environment variableDescriptionMandatoryDefault value
MOVE2KUBE_URLThe move2kube instance server URL✅
BACKSTAGE_NOTIFICATIONS_URLThe backstage server URL for notifications✅
NOTIFICATIONS_BEARER_TOKENThe authorization bearer token to use to send notifications✅
MOVE2KUBE_GET_PLAN_MAX_RETRIESThe amount of retries to get the plan before failing the workflow❌10

m2k-func serverless function

Application properties can be initialized from environment variables before running the application:

Environment variableDescriptionMandatoryDefault value
MOVE2KUBE_APIThe move2kube instance server URL✅
SSH_PRIV_KEY_PATHThe absolute path to the SSH private key✅
BROKER_URLThe knative broker URL✅
LOG_LEVELThe log level❌INFO

Components

The use case has the following components:

  1. m2k: the Sonataflow resource representing the workflow. A matching Deployment is created by the sonataflow operator..
  2. m2k-save-transformation-func: the Knative Service resource that holds the service retrieving the move2kube instance output and saving it to the git repository. A matching Deployment is created by the Knative deployment.
  3. move2kube instance: the Deployment running the move2kube instance
  4. Knative Trigger:
    1. m2k-save-transformation-event: event sent by the m2k workflow that will trigger the execution of m2k-save-transformation-func.
    2. transformation-saved-trigger-m2k: event sent by m2k-save-transformation-func if/once the move2kube output is successfully saved to the git repository.
    3. error-trigger-m2k: event sent by m2k-save-transformation-func if an error while saving the move2kube output to the git repository.
  5. The Knative Broker named default which link the components together.

Installation

See official installation guide

Usage

  1. Create a workspace and a project under it in your move2kube instance
    • you can reach your move2kube instance by running
    oc -n sonataflow-infra get routes
    Sample output:
    NAME                                   HOST/PORT                                                                                             PATH   SERVICES                                 PORT    TERMINATION   WILDCARD
move2kube-route                        move2kube-route-sonataflow-infra.apps.cluster-c68jb.dynamic.redhatworkshops.io                               move2kube-svc                            <all>   edge          None
  2. Go to the backstage instance.

To get it, you can run

oc -n rhdh-operator get routes

Sample output:

NAME                  HOST/PORT                                                                            PATH   SERVICES              PORT           TERMINATION     WILDCARD
backstage-backstage   backstage-backstage-rhdh-operator.apps.cluster-c68jb.dynamic.redhatworkshops.io   /      backstage-backstage   http-backend   edge/Redirect   None

  1. Go to the Orchestrator page.

  2. Click on Move2Kube workflow and then click the run button on the top right of the page.

  3. In the repositoryURL field, put the URL of your git project

  4. In the sourceBranch field, put the name of the branch holding the project you want to transform

    • ie: main

  5. In the targetBranch field, put the name of the branch in which you want the move2kube output to be persisted. If the branch exists, the workflow will fail

    • ie: move2kube-output

  6. In the workspaceId field, put the ID of the move2kube instance workspace to use for the transformation. Use the ID of the workspace created at the 1st step.

    • ie: a46b802d-511c-4097-a5cb-76c892b48d71

  7. In the projectId field, put the ID of the move2kube instance project under the previous workspace to use for the transformation. Use the ID of the project created at the 1st step.

    • ie: 9c7f8914-0b63-4985-8696-d46c17ba4ebe

  8. Then click on nextStep

  9. Click on run to trigger the execution

  10. Once a new transformation has started and is waiting for your input, you will receive a notification with a link to the Q&A

  11. Once you completed the Q&A, the process will continue and the output of the transformation will be saved in your git repository, you will receive a notification to inform you of the completion of the workflow.

    • You can now clone the repository and checkout the output branch to deploy your manifests to your cluster! You can check the move2kube documention if you need guidance on how to deploy the generated artifacts.

5.3 - Development

Serverless-Workflows

A selected set of serverless workflows.

Here is the layout of directories per workflow. Each folder contains at least:

  • application.properties the configuration item specific for the workflow app itself.
  • ${workflow}.sw.yaml the serverless workflow definitions with respect to the best practices.
  • specs/ optional folder with OpenAPI specs if the flow needs them.

All .svg can be ignored, there’s no real functional use for them in deployment and all of them are created by VSCode extension.

Every workflow has a matching container image pushed to quay.io by a github workflows in the form of quay.io/orchestrator/serverless-workflow-${workflow}.

Current image statuses:

After image publishing, GitHub action will generate kubernetes manifests and push a PR to the workflows helm chart repo under a directory matching the workflow name. This repo is used to deploy the workflows to an environment with Sonataflow operator running.

How to introduce a new workflow

Follow these steps to successfully add a new workflow:

  1. Create a folder under the root with the name of the flow, e.x /onboarding
  2. Copy application.properties, onboarding.sw.yaml into that folder
  3. Create a GitHub workflow file .github/workflows/${workflow}.yaml that will call main workflow (see greeting.yaml)
  4. Create a pull request but don’t merge yet.
  5. Send a pull request to serverless-workflows-config repository to add a sub-chart under the path charts/workflows/charts/onboarding. You can copy the greeting sub-chart directory and files.
  6. Create a PR to serverless-workflows-config repository and make sure its merge.
  7. Now the PR from 4 can be merged and an automatic PR will be created with the generated manifests. Review and merge.

See Continuous Integration with make for implementation details of the CI pipeline.

Builder image

There are two builder images under ./pipeline folder:

  • workflow-builder-dev.Dockerfile - references nightly build image from docker.io/apache/incubator-kie-sonataflow-builder:main that doesn’t required any authorization
  • workflow-builder.Dockerfile - references OpenShift Serverless Logic builder image from registry.redhat.io which requires authorization.
    • To use this dockerfile locally, you must be logged to registry.redhat.io. To get access to that registry, follow:
      1. Get tokens here. Once logged in to podman, you should be able to pull the image.
      2. Verify pulling the image here

Note on CI: For every PR merged in the workflow directory, a GitHub Action runs an image build to generate manifests, and a new PR is automatically generated in the serverless-workflows-config repository. The credentials used by the build process are defined as organization level secret, and the content is from a token on the helm repo with an expiry period of 60 days. Currently only the repo owner (rgolangh) can recreate the token. This should be revised.

5.4 - Workflow Examples

Our Orchestrator Serverless Workflow Examples repository, located at GitHub, provides a collection of sample workflows designed to help you explore and understand how to build serverless workflows using Orchestrator. These examples showcase a range of use cases, demonstrating how workflows can be developed, tested, and executed based on various inputs and conditions.

Please note that this repository is intended for development and testing purposes only. It serves as a reference for developers looking to create custom workflows and experiment with serverless orchestration concepts. These examples are not optimized for production environments and should be used to guide your own development processes.

5.5 - Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Guide

This document provides solutions to common problems encountered with serverless workflows.

Table of Contents

  1. HTTP Errors
  2. Workflow Errors
  3. Configuration Problems
  4. Performance Issues
  5. Error Messages
  6. Network Problems
  7. Common Scenarios
  8. Contact Support

HTTP Errors

Many workflow operations are REST requests to REST endpoints. If an HTTP error occurs then the workflow will fail and the HTTP code and message will be displayed. Here is an example of the error in the UI. Please use HTTP codes documentation for understanding the meaning of such errors.
Here are some examples:

  • 409. Usually indicates that we are trying to update or create a resource that already exists. E.g. K8S/OCP resources.
  • 401. Unauthorized access. A token, password or username might be wrong or expired.

Workflow Errors

Problem: Workflow execution fails

Solution:

  1. Examine the container log of the workflow
        oc logs my-workflow-xy73lj

Problem: Workflow is not listed by the orchestrator plugin

Solution:

  1. Examine the container status and logs

        oc get pods my-workflow-xy73lj
    oc logs my-workflow-xy73lj

  2. Most probably the Data index service was unready when the workflow started. Typically this is what the log shows:

        2024-07-24 21:10:20,837 ERROR [org.kie.kog.eve.pro.ReactiveMessagingEventPublisher] (main) Error while creating event to topic kogito-processdefinitions-events for event ProcessDefinitionDataEvent {specVersion=1.0, id='586e5273-33b9-4e90-8df6-76b972575b57', source=http://mtaanalysis.default/MTAAnalysis, type='ProcessDefinitionEvent', time=2024-07-24T21:10:20.658694165Z, subject='null', dataContentType='application/json', dataSchema=null, data=org.kie.kogito.event.process.ProcessDefinitionEventBody@7de147e9, kogitoProcessInstanceId='null', kogitoRootProcessInstanceId='null', kogitoProcessId='MTAAnalysis', kogitoRootProcessId='null', kogitoAddons='null', kogitoIdentity='null', extensionAttributes={kogitoprocid=MTAAnalysis}}: java.util.concurrent.CompletionException: io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel$AnnotatedConnectException: Connection refused: sonataflow-platform-data-index-service.default/10.96.15.153:80

  3. Check if you use a cluster-wide platform:

       $ oc get sonataflowclusterplatforms.sonataflow.org
   cluster-platform

    If you have, like in the example output, then use the namespace sonataflow-infra when you look for the sonataflow services

    Make sure the Data Index is ready, and restart the workflow - notice the sonataflow-infra namespace usage:

        $ oc get pods -l sonataflow.org/service=sonataflow-platform-data-index-service -n sonataflow-infra
    NAME                                                      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    sonataflow-platform-data-index-service-546f59f89f-b7548   1/1     Running   0          11kh

    $ oc rollout restart deployment my-workflow

Problem: Workflow is failing to reach an HTTPS endpoint because it can’t verify it

  • REST actions performed by the workflow can fail the SSL certificate check if the target endpoint is signed with a CA which is not available to the workflow. The error in the workflow pod log usually looks like this:

        sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException - unable to find valid certification path to requested target

Solution:

  1. If this happens then we need to load the additional CA cert into the running workflow container. To do so, please follow this guile from the SonataFlow guides site: https://sonataflow.org/serverlessworkflow/main/cloud/operator/add-custom-ca-to-a-workflow-pod.html

Configuration Problems

Problem: Workflow installed in a different namespace than Sonataflow services fails to start

Solution: When deploying a workflow in a namespace other than the one where Sonataflow services are running (e.g., sonataflow-infra), there are essential steps to follow to enable persistence and connectivity for the workflow. See the following steps.

6 - Plugins

6.1 - Notifications Plugin

How to get started with the notifications and signals

The Backstage Notifications System provides a way for plugins and external services to send notifications to Backstage users.

These notifications are displayed in the dedicated page of the Backstage frontend UI or by frontend plugins per specific scenarios.

Additionally, notifications can be sent to external channels (like email) via “processors” implemented within plugins.

Upstream documentation can be found in:

Frontend

Notifications are messages sent to either individual users or groups. They are not intended for inter-process communication of any kind.

To list and manage, choose Notifications from the left-side menu item.

There are two basic types of notifications:

  • Broadcast: Messages sent to all users of Backstage.
  • Entity: Messages delivered to specific listed entities from the Catalog, such as Users or Groups.

Frontend UI

Backend

The backend plugin provides the backend application for reading and writing notifications.

Authentication

The Notifications are primarily meant to be sent by backend plugins. In such flow, the authentication is shared among them.

To let external systems (like a Workflow) create new notifications by sending POST requests to the Notification REST API, authentication needs to be properly configured via setting the backend.auth.externalAccess property of the app-config .

Refer to the service-to-service auth documentation for more details, focusing on the Static Tokens section as the simplest setup option.

Creating a notification by external services

An example request for creating a broadcast notification can look like:

curl -X POST https://[BACKSTAGE_BACKEND]/api/notifications -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_BASE64_SHARED_KEY_TOKEN" -d '{"recipients":{"type":"broadcast"},"payload": {"title": "Title of broadcast message","link": "http://foo.com/bar","severity": "high","topic": "The topic"}}'

Configuration

Configuration of the dynamic plugins is in the dynamic-plugins-rhdh ConfigMap created by the Helm chart during installation.

Frontend configuration

Usually there is no need to change the defaults but little tweaks can be done on the props section:

            frontend:
              redhat.plugin-notifications:
                dynamicRoutes:
                  - importName: NotificationsPage
                    menuItem:
                      config:
                        props:
                          titleCounterEnabled: true
                          webNotificationsEnabled: false
                      importName: NotificationsSidebarItem
                    path: /notifications

Backend configuration

Except setting authentication for external callers, there is no special plugin configuration needed.

Forward to Email

It is possible to forward notification content to email address. In order to do that you must add the Email Processor Module to your Backstage backend.

Configuration

Configuration options can be found in plugin’s documentation.

Example configuration:

      pluginConfig:
        notifications:
          processors:
            email:
              filter:
                minSeverity: low
                maxSeverity: critical
                excludedTopics: []
              broadcastConfig:
                receiver: config # or none or users
                receiverEmails:
                  - foo@company.com
                  - bar@company.com
              cache:
                ttl:
                  days: 1
              concurrencyLimit: 10
              replyTo: email@company.com
              sender: email@company.com
              transportConfig:
                hostname: your.smtp.host.com
                password: a-password
                username: a-smtp-username
                port: 25
                secure: false
                transport: smtp

Ignoring unwanted notifications

The configuration of the module explains how to configure filters. Filters are used to ignore notifications that should not be forwarded to email. The supported filters include minimum/maximum severity and list of excluded topics.

User notifications

Each user notification has a list of recipients. The recipient is an entity in Backstage catalog. The notification will be sent to the email addresses of the recipients.

Broadcast notifications

In broadcast notifications we do not have recipients, the notifications are delivered to all users.

The module’s configuration supports a few options for broadcast notifications:

  • Ignoring broadcast notifications to be forwarded
  • Sending to predefined address list only
  • Sending to all users whose catalog entity has an email

6.2 - Orchestrator Plugin

Orchestrator Plugin for Backstage

The Orchestrator for Backstage is a mechanism designed to facilitate the implementation and execution of developer self-service flows. It serves as a vital component that enhances and augments the existing scaffolder functionality of Backstage with a more flexible and powerful set of features including long-running and asynchronous flows.

The orchestrator works harmoniously with other Backstage components such as the Software Catalog, permissions, and plugins as well as others. By leveraging its capabilities, organizations can orchestrate and coordinate developer self-service flows effectively.

Context

The Backstage Orchestrator plugin aims to provide a better option to Scaffolder, based on workflows to have a more flexible and powerful tool that addresses the need by streamlining and automating processes, allowing developers to focus more on coding and innovation.

The orchestrator relies on SonataFlow, a powerful tool for building cloud-native workflow applications.

The main idea is to keep the same user experience for users, leveraging the UI components, input forms, and flow that Scaffolder provides, this way it should be straightforward for users and transparent no matter whether using Templates or Workflows, both can live together being compatible with integration points.

The orchestrator controls the flow orchestrating operations/tasks that may be executed in any external service including Scaffolder Actions, this way it is possible to leverage any existing Action hence Software Templates can be easily migrated to workflows opening the door to extend them to more complex use cases.

Capabilities

Advanced core capabilities

  • Stateful/long-lived
  • Branching and parallelism
  • Error management and compensation
  • Event-driven supporting CloudEvents
  • Audit logging
  • Sub-flows
  • Choreography
  • Timer/timeout control
  • Built-in powerful expression evaluation with JQ
  • Low Code/No code
  • Cloud-native architecture Kubernetes/OpenShift with Operator support
  • OpenAPI / REST built-in integration etc.

Client-side tooling

  • Orchestration visualization / graphical editor
  • Integration with service catalog/actions
  • GitHub integration
  • Form generation
  • Runtime monitoring of instances
  • Dashboards
  • Potential custom integrations (user interaction, notifications, etc.)

For administrators

Installation

The Orchestrator plugin is composed of the following packages:

  • @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator-backend package connects the Backstage server to the Orchestrator. For setup process, see Backend Setup
  • @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator package contains frontend components for the Orchestrator plugin. For setup process, see Frontend Setup
  • @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator-common package contains shared code between the Orchestrator plugin packages.

Prerequisites for running the plugins locally in development mode

  • Docker up and running

Setting up the Orchestrator as a dynamic plugin in a Helm deployment

Please follow this link for instructions: https://github.com/janus-idp/backstage-showcase/blob/main/showcase-docs/dynamic-plugins.md#helm-deployment

Setting up the configuration for the Orchestrator plugin

The following configuration is required for the Orchestrator plugin to work properly:

backend:
  csp:
    frame-ancestors: ['http://localhost:3000', 'http://localhost:7007']
    script-src: ["'self'", "'unsafe-inline'", "'unsafe-eval'"]
    script-src-elem: ["'self'", "'unsafe-inline'", "'unsafe-eval'"]
    connect-src: ["'self'", 'http:', 'https:', 'data:']
orchestrator:
  sonataFlowService:
    baseUrl: http://localhost
    port: 8899
    autoStart: true
    workflowsSource:
      gitRepositoryUrl: https://github.com/parodos-dev/backstage-orchestrator-workflows
      localPath: /tmp/orchestrator/repository
  dataIndexService:
    url: http://localhost:8899
  • When interacting with an existing SonataFlow infrastructure, the sonataFlowService config section must be entirely omitted and the dataIndexService.url must point to the existing Data Index Service.

For more information about the configuration options, including other optional properties, see the config.d.ts file.

Setting up the Orchestrator backend package

  1. Install the Orchestrator backend plugin using the following command:

    yarn workspace backend add @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator-backend

  2. Add the following code to the packages/backend/src/index.ts file:

    const backend = createBackend();

/* highlight-add-next-line */
backend.add(import('@janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator-backend'));

backend.start();

Setting up the Orchestrator frontend package

  1. Install the Orchestrator frontend plugin using the following command:

    yarn workspace app add @janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator

  2. Add a route to the OrchestratorPage and the customized template card component to Backstage App (packages/app/src/App.tsx):

    /* highlight-add-next-line */
import { OrchestratorPage } from '@janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator';

const routes = (
  <FlatRoutes>
    {/* ... */}
    {/* highlight-add-next-line */}
    <Route path="/orchestrator" element={<OrchestratorPage />} />
  </FlatRoutes>
);

  3. Add the Orchestrator to Backstage sidebar (packages/app/src/components/Root/Root.tsx):

    /* highlight-add-next-line */
import { OrchestratorIcon } from '@janus-idp/backstage-plugin-orchestrator';

export const Root = ({ children }: PropsWithChildren<{}>) => (
  <SidebarPage>
    <Sidebar>
      <SidebarGroup label="Menu" icon={<MenuIcon />}>
        {/* ... */}
        {/* highlight-add-start */}
        <SidebarItem
          icon={OrchestratorIcon}
          to="orchestrator"
          text="Orchestrator"
        />
        {/* highlight-add-end */}
      </SidebarGroup>
      {/* ... */}
    </Sidebar>
    {children}
  </SidebarPage>
);

For users

Using the Orchestrator plugin in Backstage

The Orchestrator plugin enhances the Backstage with the execution of developer self-service flows. It provides a graphical editor to visualize workflow definitions, and a dashboard to monitor the execution of the workflows.

Refer to the Quick start to install the Orchestrator using the helm chart and execute a sample workflow through the Red Hat Developer Hub orchestrator plugin UI.

OpenAPI

The plugin provides OpenAPI v2 endpoints definition to facilitate communication between the frontend and backend. This approach minimizes the data that needs to be sent to the frontend, provides flexibility and avoids dependencies on changes in the CNCF serverless specification. It also allows for a seamless transition if there’s a need to replace the backend implementation.

In addition, by leveraging on OpenAPI spec, it is possible to generate clients and create CI steps.

OpenAPI specification file is available in orchestrator-common.
OpenAPI specification documentation is available here

NOTE:
While the OpenAPI specification is available in the Orchestrator plugin, the UI currently does not rely on this spec.
We plan to incorporate v2 endpoints into the UI in the near future.

orchestrator-common

The typescript schema is generated in auto-generated folder from openapi.yaml specification file.

orchestrator-backend

The orchestrator backend can use the generated schema to validate the HTTP requests and responses.

NOTE: Temporary the validation has been disabled. It will be enabled when the orchestrator frontend will switch to the use of v2 endpoints only.

Development instruction

Checkout the backstage-plugin

git clone git@github.com:janus-idp/backstage-plugins.git

If you need to change the OpenAPI spec, edit the openapi.yaml according to your needs and then execute from the project root folder:

yarn --cwd plugins/orchestrator-common openapi

This command updates the auto-generated files and the auto-generated docs.

NOTE: Do not manually edit auto-generated files

If you add a new component in the spec, then you need to export the generated typescript object here. For example, if you define

components:
  schemas:
    Person:
      type: object
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
        surname:
          type: string

then

export type Person = components['schemas']['Person'];

When defining a new endpoint, you have to define the operationId. That id is the one that you can use to implement the endpoint logic.

For example, let’s assume you add

paths:
  /names:
    get:
      operationId: getNames
      description: Get a list of names
      responses:
        '200':
          description: Success
          content:
            application/json:
              schema:
               type: array
                items:
                  $ref: '#/components/schemas/Person'

Then you can implement the endpoint in router.ts referring the operationId getNames:

api.register('getNames', async (_c, _req, res: express.Response, next) => {
  // YOUR LOGIC HERE
  const result: Person[] = [
    { name: 'John', surname: 'Snow' },
    { name: 'John', surname: 'Black' },
  ];

  res.status(200).json(result);
});