DanStough / blorp

BLORP or maybe Universal Consul Dev Environment

blorp

BLORP, or maybe Universal Consul Dev Environment

Intro

Purpose

To shorten the feedback loop of the Consul development cycle, starting with a focus/integration on K8S.

Non-purpose

1. Simulate all deployments of Consul

Benefits

1. K8S Testings First
2. Faster 🏃
   • uses existing docker containers and replaces only the binary
   • pushes containers around locally - no remote registries required.
   • concurrent builds
   • less typing
3. Implicitly tests "upgrade" scenarios. Re-deploying Consul on top of Consul.
4. Some conveniences, like default port forwarding.

Cons

1. Obviously only works for k8s
2. Moving between versions could be hard (could be solved with different branches or clusters)
3. Still requires additional configurations for failover, etc.

How to use the thing

1. Make sure you have a kubernetes cluster and cli accoutrements installed and configured properly. Tools I recommend when in doubt:
   1. Rancher Desktop with the Moby container runtime selected. This will also install
   2. k3d for creating a cluster with multiple nodes, which is useful for deployments in Consul that have anti-affinity. I use this one for testing. I use this for testing: k3d cluster create testing --agents=3 --no-lb
2. Install Skaffold >=v2.0
   1. Easy mode: brew install skaffold
3. Clone this repo.
4. Initialize the submodules:
   1. git submodule init
   2. git submodule update
5. Run the following command.
   1. `skaffold dev``
6. ☕️
7. Change a file affecting one of the Consul components and watch the helm chart redeploy.

1. Visit the FakeService App at http://localhost:8081 -->
2. When you're done, CTRL+C to exit skaffold and have it clean up your cluster.

TODO

• Have applications redeploy when consul-dataplane is redeployed
• Experiment with a go.work file at the root of the repo to share the API module.
• Build the UI
• Build CRDs and check for to redeploy
• Codespace Integration?