Microlight

About

airplane.dev had this ability to enable non technical folks to execute tasks which are defined in code. This was super useful. Schedule the task and the task runs like a cron with a visual interface to inspect. Each tasks return meaningful console log as well as user readable output. This because useful for things like upload and process an excel file periodically, option to restart production server etc. can now be done my a non-technical person with a clear SOP. The code or logic is still written by a technical person.

Airplane.dev has a ton of other features as well. They tried to make the platform no-code. This repo trys to replace Airplane.dev's super code features only. We are calling it "microlight" because like an real airplane, microlights can flight but microlight hardly have any other features or ability than fly. With microlight we have removed 90% of airplane features and retained on 10% of the feature that we actually liked.

Microlight can do

• Execution logic has to be written with code (will not no support no code ever)
• Tasks can be executed by non techincal people from a GUI
• Tasks can be scheduled
• Show console logs and execution output

thats it

Microlight cannot and will not do

• No code support
• Multiple server or master/worker mode

Microlight is designed as simple solution. This is not designed for massive scale. Intentionally Microlight does not support master/worker node. The Microlight server and the execution of task happens on the same machine. If you are looking for a multi node setup, then we recomment using rundeck. For most small startups, rundeck is an overkill. Scaling microlight can only be done by vertical scaling (increasing the size of the server). Microlight does not support horizontal scaling.

Setup

Create a new folder and a git repo e.g.

mkdir microlight-imgears
git init

Install package

degit git@github.com:alexjv89/microlight.git microlight
cd microlight && npm install --omit=dev
cd .. # to come back to the project repo

note degit pull the code from the repo to microlight folder. It has to be pull to this folder only. We recommend adding microlight to .gitignore. This way you can commit only the tasks that you are creating.

Setup config

touch microlight.config.js

The content of the file microlight.config.js should be:

module.exports={
	tasks_folder:'tasks', // change this to load tasks from a different folder
}

Create a sample task

mkdir tasks
cd tasks
touch sample.task.js
cd .. # to come back to project repo

Sample task

module.exports = {
  slug:'sample_task',
  name: 'Sample Task',
  description: 'Hello world',
  inputs: {
    name:{
      description:'Name of the user',
      type:'string',
    }
  },
  schedule:{
    crontime:'30 6 * * *',
    timezone:'Asia/Kolkata',
  },
  fn: async function (ml,{name}) {
    if(!name)
      ml.log(`Hello ${name||'World'}`);
    return 'all done';
  }
};

Create environment variables

touch .env
nano .env #copy envinronment variables here

environment variables required

# google client
ML_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID=""
ML_GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET=""
ML_GOOGLE_CALLBACK_URL="https://microlight.cashflowy.io/oauth2/callback/google"

# connect to database
ML_DB_HOST=""
ML_DB_USER=""
ML_DB_PASSWORD=""
ML_DB_DATABASE="microlight"


APP_NAME="microlight"
APP_URL="http://localhost:1337"

# sailsjs basic settings
NODE_ENV="development"
PORT="1337"
SAILS_SESSION_SECRET="asdfasfadsfasdf"
PASSWORD_RESET_SECRET="asdfasdfasdfasfdasgf"

# connect to mailgun
# MAILGUN_FROM_EMAIL="alex@microlight.echoalex.com"
MAILGUN_APIKEY="asdfasdf"
MAILGUN_DOMAIN="mail.cashflowy.io"
MAILGUN_INCOMING_DOMAIN="mail.cashflowy.io"

Start server

node node_modules/@alexjv89/microlight/app.js

Development

• use vs code for development
• set up tasks_folder:'api/tasks'
• set the project folder to be the microlight folder itself.

// project_folder=process.cwd().replace('/microlight',''); // makes this global variable
project_folder=process.cwd(); // makes this global variable

Usage

Sample task

module.exports = {

  slug:'process_master_data',
  name: 'Process master data',
  description: 'Hello something.',
  inputs: {
    // filename: {
    //   description: 'filename of the excel file',
    //   type: 'string',
    //   required:true
    // }
    // id:{
    //   description:'ID of the master data version',
    //   type:'number',
    //   required:true
    // }
  },
  schedule:{
    crontime:'30 6 * * *',
    timezone:'Asia/Kolkata',
  },
  fn: async function (ml,{id}) {
  	// print single string value
    ml.log('looks like everything is done - '+new Date().toISOString());
    // print markdown to logs
    
    ml.markdown(`
      ### Dry run
      #### About the file you uploaded
      - **Upload file:** ${file.filename}
      - **Contains parts:** ${dryrun.parts.join(', ')}
      - **Contains weeks:** ${dryrun.weeks.join(', ')}
      #### Changes that will be made:
      - **Will update:** ${dryrun.status.updated}
      - **Will create:** ${dryrun.status.created}
    `);

    //print json 
    ml.json(file);

    //print error
    ml.error(new Error('sample error'));
    return 'all done';
  }
};

Change log

The changelog can be found at /changelog.md