When creating a Node.js function using the func
CLI, the project directory
looks like a typical Node.js project. Both HTTP and Event functions have the same
template structure.
❯ func create fn
Project path: /home/developer/projects/fn
Function name: fn
Runtime: typescript
❯ tree fn
fn
├── func.yaml
├── package.json
├── package-lock.json
├── README.md
├── src
│ └── index.ts
├── test
│ ├── integration.ts
│ └── unit.ts
└── tsconfig.json
Aside from the func.yaml
file, this looks like the beginning of just about
any TypeScript project. For now, we will ignore the func.yaml
file, and just
say that it is a configuration file used when building your project.
If you are interested, check out the reference doc.
To learn more about the CLI and the details for each supported command, see
the CLI Commands document.
To run a function, you'll first need to build it. This step creates an OCI container image that can be run locally on your computer, or on a Kubernetes cluster.
❯ func build
After the function has been built, it can be run locally.
❯ func run
Functions can be invoked with a simple HTTP request.
You can test to see if the function is working by using your browser to visit
http://localhost:8080. You can also access liveness and readiness
endpoints at http://localhost:8080/health/liveness and
http://localhost:8080/health/readiness. These two endpoints are used
by Kubernetes to determine the health of your function. If everything
is good, both of these will return OK
.
To deploy your function to a Kubernetes cluster, use the deploy
command.
❯ func deploy
You can get the URL for your deployed function with the info
command.
❯ func info
Node.js functions can be tested locally on your computer. In the project there is
a test
folder which contains some simple unit and integration tests. To run these
locally, you'll need to install the required dependencies. You do this as you would
with any TypeScript project.
❯ npm install
Once you have done this, you can run the provided tests with npm test
. The default
test framework for Node.js functions is tape
.
If you prefer another, that's no problem. Just remove the tape
dependency from
package.json
and install a test framework more to your liking.
Boson Node.js functions have very few restrictions. You can add any required dependencies in package.json
, and you may include additional local JavaScript or TypeScript files in the src
directory.
The one primary requirement is that your project contain a src/index.ts
file which exports a function named handle
. In this section, we will look in a little more detail at how Boson functions are invoked, and what APIs are available to you as a developer.
When using the func
CLI to create a function project, you may choose to generate a project
that responds to a CloudEvent
or simple HTTP. CloudEvents
in Knative are transported over
HTTP as a POST
request, so in many ways, the two types of functions are very much the same.
They each will listen and respond to incoming HTTP events.
When an incoming request is received, your function will be invoked with a Context
object as the first parameter. If the incoming request is a CloudEvent
, then the CloudEvent
is extracted from the incoming message and provided as a second parameter.
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): CloudEvent
Functions may return any valid JavaScript type, or nothing at all. When a
function returns nothing, and no failure is indicated, the caller will receive
a 204 No Content"
response. Functions may also return a CloudEvent
, or a
Message
object in order to push events into the Knative eventing system. In
this case, the developer is not required to understand or implement the
CloudEvent messaging specification. Headers and other relevant information from
the returned values are extracted and sent with the response.
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): CloudEvent {
// process customer and return a new CloudEvent
const customer = cloudevent.data;
return new CloudEvent({
source: 'customer.processor',
type: 'customer.processed'
})
}
Functions may additionally set headers to be sent with the response by adding a
headers
property to the object being returned. These headers will be
extracted and sent with the response to the caller.
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): Record<string, string> {
// process customer and return custom headers
// the response will be '204 No content'
const customer = cloudevent.data;
return { headers: { "customer-id": customer.id } };
}
Developers may set the response code returned to the caller by adding a
statusCode
property to the response.
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): Record<string, string> {
// process customer
const customer = cloudevent.data;
if (customer.restricted) {
return {
statusCode: 451
}
}
// business logic, then
return {
statusCode: 240
}
}
This also works with Error
objects thrown from the function.
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent) Record<string, string> {
// process customer
const customer = cloudevent.data;
if (customer.restricted) {
const err = new Error(‘Unavailable for legal reasons’);
err.statusCode = 451;
throw err;
}
}
Functions are invoked with a context object as the first parameter. This object
provides access to the incoming request information. Developers can get the
HTTP request method, any query strings sent with the request, the headers, the
HTTP version, the request body. If the incoming request is a CloudEvent
, the
CloudEvent
itself will also be found on the context object.
The Context
object has several properties that may be accessed by the
function developer.
Provides a logging object that can be used to write output to the cluster logs. The log adheres to the Pino logging API (https://getpino.io/#/docs/api).
function handle(context:Context): string {
context.log.info('Processing customer');
return 'OK';
}
Access the function via curl
to invoke it.
curl http://example.com
The function will log
{"level":30,"time":1604511655265,"pid":3430203,"hostname":"localhost.localdomain","reqId":1,"msg":"Processing customer"}
Returns the query string for the request, if any, as key value pairs. These attributes are also found on the context object itself.
function handle(context: Context): string {
// Log the 'name' query parameter
context.log.info(context.query.name);
// Query parameters also are attached to the context
context.log.info(context.name);
return 'OK';
}
Access the function via curl
to invoke it.
curl "http://example.com?name=tiger"
The function will log
{"level":30,"time":1604511655265,"pid":3430203,"hostname":"localhost.localdomain","reqId":1,"msg":"tiger"}
{"level":30,"time":1604511655265,"pid":3430203,"hostname":"localhost.localdomain","reqId":1,"msg":"tiger"}
Returns the request body if any. If the request body contains JSON, this will be parsed so that the attributes are directly available.
function handle(context: Context): string {
// log the incoming request body's 'hello' parameter
context.log.info(context.body.hello);
return 'OK';
}
Access the function via curl
to invoke it.
curl -X POST -d '{"hello": "world"}' -H'Content-type: application/json' http://example.com
The function will log
{"level":30,"time":1604511655265,"pid":3430203,"hostname":"localhost.localdomain","reqId":1,"msg":"world"}
Returns the HTTP request headers as an object.
function handle(context: Context): string {
context.log.info(context.headers['custom-header']);
return 'OK';
}
Access the function via curl
to invoke it.
curl -H'x-custom-header: some-value’' http://example.com
The function will log
{"level":30,"time":1604511655265,"pid":3430203,"hostname":"localhost.localdomain","reqId":1,"msg":"some-value"}
Returns the HTTP request method as a string.
Returns the HTTP version as a string.
Returns the HTTP major version number as a string.
Returns the HTTP minor version number as a string.
Returns the HTTP minor version number as a string.
There is a single method on the Context
object which is a convenience
function for returning a CloudEvent
object. In Knative systems, if a function
service is invoked by an event broker with a CloudEvent
, the broker will
examine the response. If the response is a CloudEvent
, this event will then
be handled by the broker just as with any other event it receives.
A function which accepts a data value and returns a CloudEvent.
// Expects to receive a CloudEvent with customer data
function handle(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): CloudEvent {
// process the customer
const customer = cloudevent.data;
const processed = processCustomer(customer);
return context.cloudEventResponse(customer)
.source('/customer/process')
.type('customer.processed')
.response();
}
The TypeScript type definition files export the following for use in your functions. Usage for these types is described in the previous sections.
// Invokable is the expected Function signature for user functions
export interface Invokable {
(context: Context, cloudevent?: CloudEvent): any
}
// Logger can be used for structural logging to the console
export interface Logger {
debug: (msg: any) => void,
info: (msg: any) => void,
warn: (msg: any) => void,
error: (msg: any) => void,
fatal: (msg: any) => void,
trace: (msg: any) => void,
}
// Context represents the function invocation context, and provides
// access to the event itself as well as raw HTTP objects.
export interface Context {
log: Logger;
req: IncomingMessage;
query?: Record<string, any>;
body?: Record<string, any>|string;
method: string;
headers: IncomingHttpHeaders;
httpVersion: string;
httpVersionMajor: number;
httpVersionMinor: number;
cloudevent: CloudEvent;
cloudEventResponse(data: string|object): CloudEventResponse;
}
// CloudEventResponse is a convenience class used to create
// CloudEvents on function returns
export interface CloudEventResponse {
id(id: string): CloudEventResponse;
source(source: string): CloudEventResponse;
type(type: string): CloudEventResponse;
version(version: string): CloudEventResponse;
response(): CloudEvent;
}
Developers are not restricted to the dependencies provided in the template
package.json
file. Additional dependencies can be added as they would be in any
other Node.js project.
npm install --save opossum
When the project is built for deployment, these dependencies will be included in the resulting runtime container image.